Mildura Writers Festival - Day One

A huge, invigorating day for a small, diverse bunch of La Trobe University Students.
It began in the room we referred to as the 'dungeon' which had minimal lighting and windows, but a room filled with a lot of thought, hope and interest in what our weekend was going to consist of and look like.

As a local from Mildura, I had no idea of what I was in for. I have experienced the corny quote of 'becoming a tourist in my own town', and have had my eyes opened beyond the street's I always travel and the same old story I follow everyday. Now I am involved, now I have a plan and now I am more appreciative of the event which is more associated with my interests than I would have even slightly considered.

Our first session of the day, consisted of some writing activities to get our minds thinking. Not only did I realise how inadequate my writing was and worse then I had expected, I was also slightly shocked as I believed I was a fairly creative person, yet I was struggling to let go and allow all to follow. We got into more conversations about writing, it's conventions and also allowed for our minds to really unpack the functions of what writing achieves and also what we believed writers did! ... This made a lot of sense to me as it was three fairly difficult questions that were posed however with all our knowledge, perspectives and idea's put together, it made more sense to see all avenues and also check out the bigger picture!  Here is just a snapshot of my answers!

What does a writer do? 
Inform, Knowledgable, Persuades, Describes, Communicates, Decides, Creates and Ponders.
Why is writing important?
Learning and educating, Enjoyment, Connects people, Involves people, Talents and Idea's go beyond ordinary.
What makes good writing, good writing?
Perspective, Opinion and engagement, Connection, Awareness and Appropriateness of voice and auditory voice.
Obviously as you can see we come up with a lot more together as a group!
Definitely scientifically proved that many heads is better then one in this instance!


We broke off for lunch, got to know one another over some food and drinks and also played a little pokemon while we were at it :)

We walked around Mildura and went down by the river to get to know the rest of us in the class and instantly knew we all had similar humour as we laughed for a good hour whilst bonding in some really, you-beaut sunshine!
We even picked the which birds best that matched our persona's according to how we viewed ourselves. Might not sound very interesting however it was a bloody good laugh!!

After lunch, something different happened. We all left (like ducks behind their mother) to visit the Mildura Arts Gallery. We were given the prompt to write with our senses about an artwork of our choice.
Instantly observing the artworks, I recognised a style that I was very familiar with. I chose to write a piece about what I gathered and took from the particular artwork. Below is the artwork I chose!

 

'A prism of triangular fun, rich, bold and colourful play. 

Stylised children merging on a side motionless to the sound of their quick feet. 

Wanting to configure viewing similar to a rubix. 

Summer fun with the scent of sprinkled water as the children ponder with the smooth gloss of just a single, red fish'

After conversing, it was time to retreat to home and prepare for our first Conversation and introduction to the Mildura Writers Festival.

Introduction to the Mildura Writers Festival
7:30pm
The first festival Author and Guest was Sunil Yapa who is a Sri Lankan American fiction writer and novelist. I quite enjoyed his performance and also his perspective of the number of debatable subjects spoken throughout this performance and recap on his Novel 'Your heart is a muscle the size of a fist' and quite frankly he turned me into this crazy person who is now 'MAD WITH HOPE'.
I tweeted numerous tweets of crazy-good quotes that this man reached out and spoke to the crowd. It was incredibly interesting and a fantastic way to motivate the audience for what is to come for the remaining of the festival. High hopes and I am definitely not mad about it!

Please note the quote from a friend: 

Then something even more magic happened...

Remember how I was saying about recognising a style I chose to write about? YEP!! 

This happened!! 

I was able to show Chris who is a previous teacher who I absolutely admire to no end, the writing that I had created about her artwork that I had chosen to character! I shared this photo on my Facebook and also had numerous of her previous students comment and also write many words of thanks, wisdom and gratitude towards Chris as their previous teacher and how grateful they are to have had her previously. 

I know this might sound dramatic ... but this was the beginning of something so REAL and I knew it!!