Mandy Sayer for The Australian
I don’t know why writers do it, but they do: indulge in a little romance with readers and/or fans before hot-footing it to the airport and on to the next city. OK. I do know why, but boy, it sure is dangerous. Years ago, a famous Australian author had a brief affair with a smitten 16-year-old fan in New York who, after a couple of days, found herself bidding a teary good bye at JFK airport as he was preparing to return to Melbourne. Typically, the author did not pass on his contact details to the girl; no phone number, no address, she wasn’t even sure how to spell his last name. Unfortunately, a mischievous Australian poet was also booked on the same flight and witnessed the exchange. He bided his time and, when the literary Lothario disappeared into the airport toilet, the poet whipped out his pen and promptly provided the author’s contact details.
Of course, writers festivals are not all bonk and bravura; I’ve also witnessed a fair amount of infighting and rivalry. One of the most notorious stoushes occurred in the late ’80s at the Melbourne Writers Festival.
Playwright and author Louis Nowra king hit the literary critic Dinny O’Hearn at Stewarts Hotel in inner-city Carlton after one festival panel session. O’Hearn had reviewed Nowra’s novel Palu unfavourably. Nowra insists their altercation had nothing to do with O’Hearn’s printed opinions, but occurred after O’Hearn cast aspersions on the plausibility of Palu’s female protagonist in the crowded pub. Nowra recalls a minor scrum ensued, at which point he was wrestled away by other drinkers and pushed out of the door.
To top it off, a midget was begging outside the pub: “Can you spare $2 for a tram fare to Malvern?” Nowra tossed him $1 and replied, “Here, go half price.” (The novelist later confessed that offending this man was his only regret over the night’s events.)
I’ve noticed that the most intense festival tensions exist among the writers.
Last year John Kinsella published a memoir, Fast Loose Beginnings: A Memoir of Intoxication, that portrayed two of his fellow poets, Anthony Lawrence and Bob Adamson, as drug-taking fans of pornography. A stream of angry emails — up to 30 or 40 a day — began arriving in Kinsella’s inbox from the injured parties, who claimed the allegations were false.
Kinsella believed they threatened retaliation and physical violence during his attendance at the upcoming Byron Bay Writers Festival, so he cancelled his appearance and obtained a restraining order.
In 2004, author and journalist Malcolm Knox was similarly rattled at the Byron Bay festival. Knox won a Walkley Award for his breaking of the Norma Khouri scandal (in Khouri’s book, Forbidden Love, the author claimed to have been born and raised in Jordan and to have witnessed the killing of her best friend Dalia at the hands of her Muslim father, when in fact she’d grown up in a middle-class Chicago suburb and had a history of theft and fraud). Khouri’s estranged husband John lived two hours’ drive away on the outskirts of Brisbane. Having been alerted that John was after him, Knox was constantly looking over his shoulder whenever he left the safety of his hotel room, expecting to be thumped.
Violence almost broke out at one festival last year when a seasoned author launched a first novel by a young writer. As most launches go, the speech was generous, wine was sipped, books were sold, the young novelist was self-conscious yet relieved. Later that night, however, after many more sips of wine (all right, bottles), the seasoned author changed his mind about the speech he’d delivered and announced to the young writer, in front of a table full of dinner guests, that he’d invented his earlier praise and that, really, the book was a complete piece of shit.
You’d think such mean-spirited incidents would be isolated, but the reality is they’re not as rare as we might hope. At one Sydney festival, as I was having a conversation with a fellow writer, a reader came up to me and remarked that he’d enjoyed my book Dreamtime Alice so much, he’d read it in four hours. “That’s good,” remarked the fellow writer, “it only took her four hours to write it.”
It’s probably no wonder that some writers either bale out of a festival at the last minute or, even worse, have a breakdown during the event.
Nearly 10 years ago in New York I befriended gay author and enfant terrible Dale Peck, who expressed a desire to attend a writers festival in Australia. I liked his books and so liaised with the Sydney Writers Festival, the board of which jumped at the chance to invite him. He accepted the invitation; Random House Australia published new editions of his novels to coincide with his appearances; I even left a spare key to my apartment in an arranged place so he could let himself in after his flight from New York.
When I arrived home that night, I was surprised to find my apartment dark and empty. Puzzled, I checked my email and read the dreaded news: Peck had neglected to tell me that he suffered from a pathological fear of flying; he’d been unable to bring himself to step aboard the plane at JFK.
There are many such stories, but one came to my attention last October when I was a guest at the Banff Writers Festival in Canada. Making conversation, I asked one of the organisers, “What’s the weirdest situation you’ve had to deal with over the years?” The organiser shook his head and replied, “Oh, that’s easy.” He went on to explain that one author — we’ll call her Lila — locked herself in her room and refused to come out, not for her panels or readings, not even to eat a meal. After a couple of days, the organiser was becoming desperate and was on his knees in the corridor, pleading, begging for her to come out.
“All right,” Lila finally yelled through the door. “I’ll come out under only one condition.” The organiser leaped to his feet and wiped his forehead with relief, promising her whatever she wished. Lila banged her fist a couple of times. “Slip a carving knife under the door first.”
Sometimes it’s the audience members at festivals who go a bit awry. In 2000, I was a guest at the Sydney Writers Festival, discussing Dreamtime Alice in front of an audience of about 300. When question time came, a man in the back row raised his hand and boomed, “Have you ever f…ed your father?”
I’ve heard stories about women who turn up at writers festivals to meet and eventually marry an author; two of these have been successful and are now happily wedded. Occasionally, however, it happens the other way around. At a festival book signing, writer Linda Jaivin noticed what she describes as a queue lurker (a reader who keeps going back to the end of the signing line so as to engage in a private conversation with the writer). When her long-haired lurker finally shuffled forward, proffering a book for Jaivin’s autograph, he pressed her to go out on a date with him that evening to see the sexually violent film Crash.
Jaivin blushed and tried to think of a polite reply. “Well,” she said, “who’s driving?”
I must admit that when Jaivin explained her definition of a queue lurker, I blushed with embarrassment. Three years ago I was guilty of queue lurking at an event featuring Richard Ford. I had a child’s suitcase full of first editions of each of his books and almost felt like a hopeless stalker when I finally opened the case and all the volumes fell in a heap on the table before him.
Occasionally, however, a queue lurker can turn out to be a refreshing surprise. Last year at the Perth Writers Festival I gave a reading from my childhood memoir Velocity. It was a chapter detailing my first day at school, during which I grew so nervous, I pissed all over the kindergarten room floor. During the book signing after the reading, a shy, pretty girl no older than five was the last audience member in the line, clutching a copy of the book. “That happened to me,” she whispered confidentially, “last Wednesday.”
“Oh, dear,” I said, “it’s awful when you pee your pants in public, isn’t it?” She nodded and smiled and leaned a little closer. “Yes,” she added. “But I didn’t get caught.”
Now, on the eve of this year’s Brisbane Writers Festival and looking back on all the past dramas and scandals, I can’t help but be reminded of a rules sign posted on the back of my bedroom door at the Banff Arts Centre last year. Sure, I discovered that the floor on which I was accommodated was usually reserved for guests under 18, but the missive could be applied to any writer or reader who is wayward, neurotic or socially dysfunctional: 9pm curfew. No drugs. No smoking. No alcohol. No sex.
Mandy Sayer will be a guest at the Brisbane Writers Festival.