The quote of the session
"Artists need to find a way to make themselves look interesting" Emily Bitto
The book 'The Strays' by Emily Bitto was discussed with many descriptive terms used to explain the book.
Opposing forces, creation, destruction, good mum / bad mum. Along with an attention that drives the characters in the story with sometimes catastrophic results. The points that stood out for me from the talk was that Emily with her PhD in creative writing found it difficult to switch between her academic writing and her creative writing. This theme was also talked about by many of the authors through the sessions where during the high school years and into University the creativity seemed to be constrained by the work that is required within the school setting.
Another aspect of the talk was that one of her writings was cut from 90,000 to 75,000 words. This is either a lot of detail or a lot of fluff and taking so much out would be difficult as removing the wrong piece could be detrimental to the work. The skill that must be involved when putting on the editors hat must be something that has to be trained long and hard.
All up not a bad session and the free dessert from Stefano de Pieri was also welcome.
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