Last week was the third annual Noted Festival, held in Canberra, where I live. I’d heard about it the previous two years, but for various reasons had never got round to actually participating in anything.
Noted isn’t like other writers festivals – for one thing, it has “an explicit commitment to emerging and experimental writing from diverse backgrounds.” From what I could tell, in practice this looks like a couple of different things. First, and most obviously, the festival celebrates writers regardless of race, gender, sexuality or disability. One of the most powerful moments for me was at the festival launch, where the Welcome to Country was delivered by Ngunnawal elder Aunty Nin Janette Phillips, who spoke of the importance of telling Indigenous stories and the role that all Australian writers, regardless of their heritage, can play in bringing to light the stories of the First Australians.
The second, less obvious aspect of celebrating diversity was the range of events on offer, across all types of writing and art more broadly. This doesn’t seem like such a big deal unless you understand what a closed shop the Australian literary scene is, and how often genre fiction (i.e. anything that’s not literary fiction) is scorned by the mainstream book world, including most major writers festivals. I know multi-award-winning genre authors (including winners of the Aurealis Awards, Australia’s premier speculative fiction award) who can’t get panel slots at the major writers festivals. Noted was the exact opposite of this – egalitarian and just damned good fun, without an ounce of snobbery. There was a spirit of playfulness that pervaded the festival, and everyone there just seemed to be having a really good time.
My favourite event was ‘Ghosts in the Seams,’ held on Friday evening in one of the city’s large op-shops (second-hand clothing stores). We were invited to develop a character of our choosing – either a new one or one we’d been working on for a while – and then to find clothes that we thought encapsulated that character and dress up. The clothes served as inspiration and we then had a 20-minute writing session where we wrote about the character or a scene from their story. It sounds crazy, but the dressing up was actually hugely inspiring. Actually putting a character’s clothes on made them seem so much more real than when you just meet them in your head. I dressed up as Jane Adams from my new novel, The Iron Line, and in the process fell in love with a pair of black steampunk-style combat boots that suited both her and me perfectly (and being an op-shop, I could buy them for just $4 and take them home!). I wrote in my last post about the importance of creative play, and this was another experience of that. I came away from it feeling re-energised and inspired.
I also got the chance to participate as a stallholder in the Independent Publishing Fair, which showcased individual authors, small presses, zines and other independent creatives, as well as poetry and performance art. Regardless of the sales side of things, I just really enjoyed talking to the people who came by, many of whom were writers or enthusiastic readers. It’s made me consider the possibility of doing other markets, because I just really enjoy getting out there and meeting people who love books as much as I do.
So, all in all it was a great festival, and I’m already looking forward to Noted 2018.
