01. I got back from my trip to Hawaii earlier in the week (more on that later) so the first think that made me happy (apart from seeing the family, obvs) was being back in my own bed. There’s nothing quite like your own bed.

02. A good day out at Melbourne Writers Festival. I saw Claire Keegan and Grace Tame, and the contrast between the two couldn’t have been greater. Claire spoke calmly and carefully, and hardly moved an inch the whole time. Her sense of humour was the driest of dry and I think it took the audience a few minutes to pick up on that. Grace, on the other hand, was like a flea in a bottle – bouncing out of her seat, and gesturing and speaking very directly to the audience – cracking jokes and laughing. (I think you can guess who’s who in the pics below!).

03. Claire Keegan spoke about the power of the Catholic Church in Ireland and said, “Every good writer is a critic of their own society.” In terms of the ongoing, systemic abuse, she added, “The Irish are very good at not saying anything… We have turning a blind eye down to a horrible and fine art.” (This is the issue that is at the heart of her novella, Small Things Like These).

On a lighter note, she discussed her writing process and her focus on paragraphs rather than simply ‘beautiful sentences’. She stated that paragraphs are like ‘bowls’ to hold the sentences. The paragraph should ‘…go into, not on about the subject’.

Sentences are naturally gregarious. They love the company of other sentences.They rub heads with one another.

She talked further about narrative structure and how she spends time working on the ‘middle’ of a story, rather than the ending (which takes care of itself if the middle is ‘fat and stout’ –

What does narrative fatten on? It actually fattens on loss…that’s what they eat and feed on, human loss.

Lastly, Keegan revealed a bit about her forthcoming novel, So Late in the Day (I think the quote below gives a good sense of her style of humour)-

It’s about a man who works in Dublin as a public servant and takes the bus home—so that’s one to look forward to. Hot stuff!

04. Grace Tame spoke about ‘…putting the control back in the hands of the [child abuse] survivors.’

While children might not have equal power [to adults], they can have an equal say.

Tame spoke very honestly about her own experience, whilst still explaining the problems in our social and legal systems at the broader level. Her passion and energy was infectious.

05. The tuna melt I had at Sloppy Joe’s Deli between author talks (I reckon sandwiches taste a million times better when made by someone else).

06. Watching: Somebody Somewhere S2 – why aren’t more people talking about this show? It’s outstanding. And screamingly funny.

07. Cold weather prompted me to refresh my long-sock collection (I loathe tights. Long socks rule).