Postcard from byron bay

Blue skies, gorgeous balmy nights, fire dancing, gossip, lots of ideas and wine- they all flowed beautifully at the 2002 Byron Bay Writers Festival.

Around 17,500 people attended, so the crowd was much bigger this year. As usual, the mood was languid and all very laid-back as people wove their way around the marquees erected in the gardens of the Byron Bay Beach Resort.

Here are a few of the snippets and highlights from the festival:

Di Morrissey, whose next book, Kimberley Sun, is released in November, hosted her usual great cocktail party at her beautiful Byron home, which was filled with lots of fresh flowers and candles and was looking magical.
Heaps of authors and publishers went to her party. Special festival guest, Ita Buttrose, was there, too. Ita was the heroine of the weekend, having woken at 4am in the morning to set off for the 12-hour drive to Byron from Sydney. An ear infection meant she couldn’t fly and she didn’t want to let her hosts down.
During a session on The Art of Storytelling, author Arnold Zable (Café Scheerazade, The Fig Tree), suggested story-telling should be made compulsory in Canberra, as it would “nurture” the shrivelled souls of our politicians.
At the Finding Your Voice in the First Novel session, young adult author Markus Zusak, described how he was inspired to write a book about brothers robbing a dentist, while he was literally sitting in the dentist’s chair. “I had to pay in cash and because it cost so much, I was thinking that it would be a good place for a hold-up.”
Bryce Courtenay, whose new book, Matthew Flinders Cat, comes out in November, reminisced about being introduced to the oral tradition of story-telling by his Zulu nanny who took care of him when he was placed in an orphanage in South Africa at a very young age. After research indicated that many writers had to write four books before they were published, he dashed off The Power Of One thinking it would never see the light of day and, for a long time, used it as a door stop.
During one of her festival appearances, Ita Buttrose recalled the time back in the 1970s when Cleo published a nude centrefold of Jack Thompson and the conservative Queensland Literary Board of Review forced the magazine to place a gold square over Jack’s strategically placed hand in all issues that went on sale in the Sunshine State.
AWW gardening author, Jackie French, is on the verge of a big deal with the BBC in UK and Fox in the US negotiating the rights to one of her books.
Di Morrissey and former Canberra journalist Mungo McCallum took differing views on the panel which discussed Byron Bay: A Sense of Community. Di talked about the flow of creative ideas that magical Byron inspires, while Mungo said it was becoming an elitist enclave for the rich and that spiralling real estate values left no room for diversity or the hippy ideals which gave Byron its flavour and character.
During a session on The Propriety of the Media, TV reporter Jeff McMullen whose memoirs, A Life of Extremes, were released earlier this year, was very candid about the commercial pressures applied to TV journalists and the single-minded obsession with ratings among TV executives. Jeff was voted the Mr Popular of the festival for his impeccable good manners, friendliness and charm.
At a Sunday session, there was a clash between political journalist and author Margot Kingston and David Leser, author and Walkley Award-winning journalist who works for The AWW and the Bulletin. Afterwards all was forgiven and they exchanged a hug.
Image supplied c/o www.byron-bay.com