The National Young Writers’ Festival is once again set to ravish Newcastle with poetry, prose and pages.
In turning 18, the NYWF has come of age, and in addition to no longer getting kicked out of nightclubs, it also finally gains admittance into the very age bracket it celebrates. Festival co-director Lex Hirst gives us her insight into what makes the long weekend so memorable, and exactly what constitutes a young writer in the first place.
“In terms of the festival it’s actually really easy to define a young writer,” Hirst explains. “It’s 18-to-35 years old. Obviously that’s quite a broad area, and we have a section of the festival for 15-to-18-year-olds called the Younger Young Writers’ Festival. It does make us quite unique around Australia, and it’s also what makes us different to the Emerging Writers’ Festival, which is perhaps the next step in professional development.
“NYWF has a real celebratory feel. It’s often the first time a young writer might decide to call themselves that, or decide that they just want to continue in the writing community somehow. That 18-to-35 age is quite an important time, because it’s not really a point where the writers in Australia are getting many opportunities for publication. It’s probably before people have reached a point where they want to write a novel, which might get them on the other literary festival scene, so we’re kind of the first stop for people who think they might like to write.”
The calibre of the festival is remarkable, with 83 different events scattered across Newcastle. NYWF has a long history of catering to different tastes, and 2015 will prove no different.
“We have screenwriters on a panel next to memoirists and sci-fi writers, video bloggers and comedians and poets, all there together to discuss an issue,” says Hirst. “You might go from one panel on the politicalisation of poetry, and then find yourself at our feminism and romance panel. Most writers like to move between genres, they like to be excited by different things. We take the programming very seriously. We think that writing is such a vital part of Australia’s cultural institutions – it’s an important job and I think we tend to undervalue that at times. Important, but you know, also fun,” she laughs.
An enduring highlight is the Late Night Readings. Scheduled across Thursday, Friday and Sunday (Saturday is reserved for the Enchantment Under The Sea Ball, where folk are encouraged to dress in their jellyfish best – “Getting your squid on,” as Hirst styles it), they are ideal bookends to days of inspired roaming.
“They’re my favourite part of the festival, and I think that’s true of a lot of people,” Hirst says. “Although there are some excellent groups doing it in Sydney, a lot of people first go to these kind of events at the NYWF. We have a bunch of different writers who have written to a theme and are reading them out loud. They’re often quite incredibly personal, intimate, funny, gross, intense or superficial stories, and I’m really excited.
“It’s our 18th birthday, so we’re looking at coming-of-age stories. So the themes are Sex and Cyborgs on Thursday, Flirting With The Law on Friday, and Breakups and Breakdowns on Sunday. Those are a mix of festival artists and wildcards, so it’s a blend of genres. I absolutely guarantee they’re going to be fun. If there’s one thing you’re going to see this year, make sure it’s a Late Night Reading.”
National Young Writers’ Festivaltakes place as part of This Is Not Art 2015 at various locations around Newcastle, Thursday October 1 – Sunday October 4.
