I woke early on the first official day of the festival and found myself greeted in the kitchen by my housemate for the week. Lewis, another WIA student, had arrived late the night before and was making coffee in the kitchen. Jenny had set out breakfast for us and after a quick bite we were ready to go. As we arrived at the Latrobe building where we would be attending classes for the day, I came to the realisation that all my ideas about Mildura being much warmer than Melbourne were extremely misguided. It was freezing. We hurried into the classroom and our teacher Sue explained the ins and outs of the festival, our subject and how the rest of the week would work. Sue had an infectious excitement for the subject that quickly rubbed off onto everyone and we were well on our way to blogging, filming and not asking the authors stupid or annoying questions (eg. "So like ahhh, what inspires you?").
After a long day, we packed up and went home, only to quickly get changed, eat some of Jennies hearty lasagna and attend the opening night of the festival. I also got to meet Brian at this point, Jennies husband who was a Doctor and also a committee member for the festival. The evening was being held in the Mildura club, a beautiful building with high ceilings, large open fireplaces and rich tapestries that hung from the roof. Tom Keneally was set to be In Conversation with Stefano di Pieri, a local cook and restaurant owner who also was very involved with the creation of the festival. By a stroke of bad luck (or good luck as it turned out) Tom Keneally had a delayed flight and was missing in action. Sharon Olds stepped in to entertain the masses while we waited for Keneally to arrive. At this time I knew very little about Olds except that she was an American Poet who had won a Pulitzer Prize in 2013. As soon as she opened her mouth I immediately recognised a certain familiarity though, she had an identical accent to my Aunty Connie who lives in Washington and is roughly the same age. After some brief introductions, Sharon began what I now recognise as her trade mark easy going and funny nature. She was relaxed and at ease with the crowd and happily told us her amazement at her recent experience with a magpie and her delight at the way he wagged his tail at her.
But it wasn't until she decided to read a poem that she had written on the flight over to Australia that I understood the hype surrounding her. Her words were so accessible and honest that I straight away understood exactly what she was feeling when she put pen to paper. I was also blown away at the absolute beauty she was able to create, harnessing the power of human nature and the natural world in a perfect symmetry that spoke directly to me. There was a raw honestly in the poem she read that I later discovered was one of her signature qualities.
Eventually Tom Keneally arrived at the building and we were then entertained by his hilariously honest and intelligent views on writing, Australian politics and life in general. Some notable quotes from the evening were Tom Keneally quoting Fred Hollows "Great humans do not believe they've made the bullet that will get them" and Keneally himself noting that "You've got to be a bit of a bully to be a great human, you've got to command the moral conscious". All in all, it was a great first day and I was excited for what was to come.
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