1 Writers really hate talking about their reading habits. At 'Origin Story', where writers were meant to discuss the books that originally inspired them to write, Joy Williams flat out refused to stick to the brief. Rather than mentioning a single novel or essay that shaped her style, she read a long, sermon-like piece about the difficulty, loneliness, and danger of writing. Meanwhile, Thomas Keneally jumped from book to book to book, never really explaining what it was about the content or pacing or characters that moved him. Only Ian Rankin and Robert Dessaix were up to the task at hand, and both focused on one thing: language. It was Anthony Burgess's pidgin patois in A Clockwork Orange that made a writer out of Rankin, while in the 'skaz' of Gogol, Dessaix found his own voice. Perhaps it's better to ask writers about what they write, rather than how they came to do so. Sasha Kahn
2 More women than men get migraines – and that’s linked to perfumes. "People will think you’re neurotic,” warned Kate Grenville’s agent when The Secret River author announced her intention to write a non-fiction book called The Case Against Scent. Instead, the book is a hit, and about to be published in the UK and US. In conversation with Caroline Baum, Grenville drew comparisons between the perfume and tobacco industries: they’re both high profit, secretive about chemical ingredients, and in denial about the damage they do to customers. Grenville told the SWF crowd that Australia lags behind countries such as Canada, which uphold scent-free environments, and that consumers should use their buying power to force change in the industry. The worst example of our over-fragranced society? “Perfumed bin liners.” Nick Dent
3 Two out of five top writers recommend walking as a panacea to anxiety. Gala presentation ‘Maybe This Will Help’ saw five writers offer their suggestions for coping with Brexit, Trump, Syria, climate change et al. Both Aussie Ruth Quibell (The Promise of Things) and NY writer-photographer Bill Hayes recommended walking to alleviate anxiety and connect with others. Pulitzer Prize winner Hisham Matar suggested embracing the “ecstatic state of humanism” that art and literature can provide. Jamie Morton (My Dad Wrote a Porno) admitted that his suggestion – drunk-tweeting his creative heroes, such as Hamilton writer-composer Lin-Manuel Miranda – is not really good advice (“He may have blocked me”). And writer-gender activist Ivan Coyote makes chicken soup for neighbours: moving to Canada to escape Trumpism is not really an option for Ivan, “because I already fucking live in Canada.” ND
4 Yoga has been commandeered by capitalism. Wellness is all very, er, well, but what it often boils down to is big business lining its pockets with the spoils of people's narcissism. That was one message that Bridget Delaney, author of Wellmania. “You can’t let yoga be your god,” she advised. “Self care is really important but we need to step beyond it and remember it’s feeding a commercial beast.” ND
5 The opposite of addiction is connection. Jenny Valentish’s book Women of Substances highlights the lack of research into women and drug and alcohol dependency, and it’s also a memoir of her own struggles with addiction. Valentish advised recovering addicts not to seek dopamine highs to replace substance use, but rather seek out the very different kinds of rush from the body’s serotonin and oxytocin, which come from caring and connection with other people. “Any kind of bonding or feelgood activity can help,” said Valentish, who does volunteer work helping injured kangaroos. ND
6 The first shirt Deng Adut ever wore was a khaki army uniform shirt. Born in South Sudan the son of a hippopotamus hunter, Adut was taken away from his mother at age seven to become a child soldier in the Second Sudanese Civil War. He fought, killed, and witnessed atrocities until escaping to Kenya with his brother at age 12 and ending up in Australia in 1998. As Adut told the SWF audience, he was hungry on the flight to Sydney as he did not know how to remove his inflight meals from their plastic containers. Arriving without any English skills, Adut today is a criminal lawyer, the 2017 NSW Australian of the Year and the co-author of searing memoir Songs of a War Boy. ND
7 There’s still plenty to be angry about when it comes to gender inequality.
Clementine Ford spoke to Jane Caro about her feminist memoir and call to arms Fight like a Girl. The discussion touched on rape culture and violence against women, gender conditioning in the ways we bring up our kids, gaslighting and ‘feminist’ fashion. It has been her chapter on body image, Ford said, that has received the biggest response. She spoke about the society’s strong message that only a thin body is a worthwhile one, that women should shrink themselves, and not take up too much space. “The saddest part is how much that stuff has resonated with everyone – I received the same letter from a 16 year old as a 70 year old,” Ford said. Claire Sandford
8 Audience questions aren’t always necessary or desirable. ‘First Nations: Matriarchal Voices’ was a moving and intimate panel that harnessed the IRL friendship of writers Evelyn Araluen, Hannah Donnelly, Nayuka Gorrie, Alison Whittaker and host Ellen van Neerven to great effect. Their comfort in each other’s company also enveloped the crowd as they read from texts by First Nations women writers and discussed personal experiences. Why then did the baby boomer at the front of the crowd feel compelled to ask the question, “Are you going to be in the Constitution?”? Had she been sitting on this burning hot topic the entire panel without actually listening to the voices on the stage? She almost wiped the previous hour of focused and powerful female-oriented reflection. Evelyn Araluen’s response was spot on: “We can’t answer this for you, we’re not NITV or the Guardian”. Claire Finneran
9 Short stories are a pessimistic literary medium. Panel discussion This Won't End Well – Secrets of Great Short Storytelling gathered together authors Tara June Winch, Joy Williams and George Saunders, with each writer reading a recent piece. While the panel didn’t reveal any ‘secrets’ per se it gave great insight into each of the writer’s personalities. Interestingly, both Winch and Williams' readings were of pieces they personally didn't like, a theme for many writers. Joy explained: "The short story is much more pessimistic. It's striving for grace through language," with George Saunders adding, "The fun of fiction is, there's always a problem." Jordan Kretchmer
10. Women don't have to act crazily – or even do much – to be labelled 'crazy'. American feminist writer Roxane Gay spoke to Durga Chew-Bose about her most recent book of short stories, Difficult Women. A key piece of wisdom she shared was that the so-called 'crazy woman' is a gender stereotype, based on ingrained expectations about neurotic or over-emotional behaviour. She gave an anecdote in which a woman accidentally leaves her work briefcase at the home of a one night stand. When she returns to collect it, she's labeled obsessive and needy – as if she engineered the situation to see her paramour again. “There are generally rational explanations for the way people behave as they do,” Gay said. Aobh O’Brien-Moody
11. Looking for Alibrandi was more than just a HSC text to many Australians. On the book’s 25th anniversary, author Melina Marchetta read the infamous passage (and film scene) where Josie and Jacob attend ‘Have a Say Day’. What followed was a moving reflection by the participants on how much Looking For Alibrandi and its depiction of migrant Australians meant to them as writers and, well, citizens. Mark Di Stefano used his time to reflect on strong immigrant matriarchs and his own Nonna. Rajith Savanadasa reflected on experiences of migrant complicity in colonialism and Yasmin Abdel-Magied talked at length about wanting to see more cross cultural representation on screens and pages and her “unrequited love” for this country. Brodie Lancaster used the book as a launching point to denounce the white men who make our culture shit with their misogyny of taste. Good stuff. Thanks for everything Josie Alibrandi. CF
12. Sci-fi is like racial oppression for white people. The Blerd Culture panel, opening with a denouncement of the talk’s title as a lazy compounding of ‘black’ and ‘nerd’ from Nayuka Gorrie, got into a lot of interesting reflections on pop culture, film, comics and the lack of meaningful voices and representation of POC within them. Panellist (and feminist legend) Roxane Gay had an interesting point about a lot of mainstream science fiction storylines, pointing out that they often involved white people trapped, enslaved and battling darker forces as a way for them to experience an oppression they simply don’t have. Basically strip mining real, painful experiences of African American and First Nations people and their history to make a futuristic narrative. Holy moly, so true. CF