Festival fever starts to kick in

Janet DeNeefe   |  Thu, 05/22/2008 11:22 AM  |  Lifestyle

As I write, I am overlooking sparkling Sydney Harbour. It really is sparkling! Ferries and cargo ships are trailing paths on the water and sailing under the graceful shade of the iconic Harbour Bridge to Circular Quay.

Welcome to the "The Great Outdoors", to the land of clear blue skies, wide-open spaces and brilliant sunshine. As an Australian, it's hard not to get swept up with a feeling of nostalgia and pride in what is surely one of the world's most beautiful cities. Even the accents seem charming!

The only thing missing is the alluring scent of the famous Aussie barbecue, the smoky aroma of snags (sausages) and t-bone steaks. The food on which I grew up. Well, it was the seventies, after all.

I am on a mission to meet some of the literary rock stars appearing at the 2008 Sydney Writers Festival. Claimed to be the third-largest writer's festival in the world, it is needless to say, one that is taken very seriously by writers and readers alike, with an audience of up to 80,000. And when you have 350 authors getting together under one roof, it's a non-stop celebration of literature and umm, of course, copious amounts of wine and whisky.

As you probably know, in my other non-culinary life, I wear the well-worn cap as the director of the Ubud Writers & Readers Festival. I was supposed to step aside this year, or rather step up, but, who else is going to work tirelessly for the love of literature (apart from my dedicated festival team, of course).

Though I have to admit, the rewards are immense. To meet writers, young and old, from all corners of the globe and hear their stories, their dreams, visions and struggles in my beloved Ubud certainly gives me great pleasure.

Named "one of the top six writers' festivals in the world", the Ubud Writers & Readers Festival, like Sydney, has played host to such luminaries as Michael Ondaatje, Amitav Ghosh, Kiran Desai, Anita Desai, Richard Flanagan, Xinran and William Dalrymple.

It has also become somewhat of an Asian springboard for writers. From our festival, Indonesian writers, such as Laksmi Pamuncak, Putu Wijaya and Johnny Waromi, have been invited to festivals in Byron Bay, Darwin and Canada, while Australian and international writers, like Gail Jones and Patrick Gale have been invited to Beijing, Hong Kong and Sri Lanka after gracing the stage in Ubud.

After five days of festival viewing in Sydney (and gate-crashing cocktail parties) I will return to Ubud, brimming with new ideas and a (somewhat) clear mind. Then it will be full-salsa-speed ahead as we begin to twirl all the numerous strings of the festival into a finely-tuned bow. And can't you hear the glorious tune it will play. I personally can't wait!

It is hard to imagine a four-day event could be such hard work. The sheer logistics of organizing more than a hundred writers is a mammoth task of organizing accommodation, sessions, events, printing programs, flyers, posters and gathering volunteers.

That is just one part of it. There are months of emails and frantic phone calls liaising with writers, the various funding bodies, literary agents, publishers and travel agents and on it goes. (Did I also mention that some writers suffer from that terrible four-letter word,"egos".) Are you starting to get the picture? It is rather like holding a huge four-day dinner party with some of your favorite friends and, at times, least favorite. I am tired just thinking about. Sigh!

The 2008 Festival is guaranteed to please and covers all genres; from fiction to nonfiction, poetry, journalism, scriptwriting, film, new media, food writing, travel writing with art exhibitions, and evening performances of dance and music. In fact, it is well on its way to becoming a world-class Arts Festival. It's hard for me to conceal my enthusiasm for it is such an inspiring and unforgettable event.

And the accolades from the writers we have entertained prove this point. As Richard Flanagan said last year; "The festival was the best I have been to anywhere in the world -- an opinion shared by many I met. There could be no better answer by the Balinese to the horror of the bombings. Nothing was everyday, everything was joyful, and nobody remained unmoved."

Our theme, Tri Hita Karana (the interrelationship between God, humanity and nature) will weave in and out of the sessions and I am especially excited about some of the topics we will be delving into, such as crime and punishment, climate change and conservation, the power of faith, poverty and politics, moral responsibility and the welfare of marginalized communities.

There will also be a delicious food program this year that will focus on the cuisine of Indonesia with discussions on globalization and traditional food culture. This will be teamed with morning rice field walks that reveal the rice-growing methods of Bali, the subak (Bali's ancient irrigation system) and other food-related field trips. Local and international chefs will also be serving up course-upon-course of gourmet offerings.

As you can see, there will be something for everyone.

Despite the hard work, festival's are a huge dose of fun, too. And no, I wouldn't change my job for the world!

Stay tuned for my next column as I start to raise the curtain on the literary stars of the show!

Copyright © 2008 The Jakarta Post - PT Bina Media Tenggara. All Rights Reserved.