John Lacey » Christian Lander

Notes on Brisbane Writers’ Festival

John Lacey — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 00:14:10 +0000

It is a bit remiss of me to have gone so long without posting here. I apologise. Since some people have been asking, I just wanted to say that the Brisbane Writers’ Festival was amazing. My trip to Brisbane in general was lovely, the Riverfire festival – an elaborate fireworks display over the water – was great fun. Some interesting (wonderful) stuff happened in my personal life while there too, though that is a bit outside of the scope of this blog [unless, for some reason, it ends up in the memoir].

As I imagined I didn’t quite get around to attending everything on my list, but for the most part what I did attend was really good. The Creativity: Art or Science? session was much less about creativity – at least in the fashion that I understand it – and much more about science. (I haven’t been so bewildered since high school physics class.) The REEF e-book digital fiction project was fascinating and will be the subject of a future post on this website.

The Not Tonight Honey: Conversations with Richard Fidler Live session was particularly entertaining. It was a show within a show as we witnessed not only a fascinating conversation about the female libidio in both literature and research with Bettina Arndt and Linda Jaivin, but also the machinations of a live radio broadcast. You can download this conversation as a podcast from the Conversations website or via iTunes.

There was an intimate and unexpectedly wonderful series of readings at Greystone Bar. Tom Cho and Stuff White People Like creator Christian Lander both gave hilarious and animated readings. (By the end of Tom Cho’s reading I didn’t want to buy his book so much as buy a recording of him reading it. Truly a comedic genius!)

While I didn’t have the opportunity to attend any sessions featuring David Williamson (arguably Australia’s most celebrated playwright) I confess I was completely starstruck passing him in the reception area of the State Library of Queensland. I remember studying his play The Removalists in high school and really enjoying it – unlike much of the other material I was subjected to in my English class.

A wonderful experience! There will be at least one or two future posts about – or inspired by – sessions from the Brisbane Writers’ Festival so stay tuned (subscribe via RSS) for more!

The Blogosphere: Part II

John Lacey — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 02:57:21 +0000

This is part two of my series on a talk given by James Maskalyk, Christian Lander and Antony Loewenstein at the Sydney Writers’ Festival recently. You can read part one here.

Blogging Tips
James had some great tips for blogging and writing in general. I particularly adored this:

First rule of writing: put your ass in a chair.

He also notes that because there is so much content on the web readers can be fickle. He recommends being clear and thinking about how accessible your writing style is. He also spoke of the importance of offering a story – a rich narrative thread – to your readers. He recommends updating regularly.

But I’m famous on the Internet…
Christian describes ‘Internet fame’ as being the lowest form of fame you can ever hope to achieve. He suggests that serial killers have more fame than Internet people. He tells bloggers to not try to become famous, insisting that readers can easily tell when someone is doing something for the joy of it and when they are just trying to make a quick buck.

Does Being Published Give You Validation?
The answer is clearly a resounding yes. I think it’s important to appreciate that these bloggers were at the Sydney Writers’ Festival not because they were bloggers, but because they were published authors and had books to promote and sell. (I mean there were no unpublished bloggers on the panel.)

Christian explained that by generating publicity through his blog he was in a much better position when approached by a publisher. You can be a ‘nobody’ he insists and still get the power of an established author before being published through blogging.

Christian also points to collaborative community efforts online that have become books such as Post Secret, something he touts as a great way of getting a book deal without ‘doing any work.’

The Blogosphere: Part I

John Lacey — Thu, 28 May 2009 11:21:21 +0000

As part of the Sydney Writers’ Festival I recently attended a talk about ‘The Blogosphere’ featuring James Maskalyk, Christian Lander and Antony Loewenstein.

Christian is the genius behind Stuff White People Like the ‘micro-humour magazine’ that chronicles… well, actually the title is fairly self-explanatory. James used blogging as a way of communicating with the outside world while working with Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) in Sudan. Antony blogs extensively about the the Israel/Palestine conflict, and is also the author of The Blogging Revolution in which he discusses individuals living in repressive regimes who are using blogging as a tool for sharing information and political change.

What is Blogging?
Christian Lander:

Blogging is not an artform. It’s writing as it always was. Maybe it was a little shorter and you publish quicker.

James described blogging as a ‘new kind of journalism’ and one that offered greater immediacy than other forms of print media and one which could incorporate multimedia elements.

Why Blog?
Antony suggests that in many countries there is no alternative to blogging for independent thought and that even in less repressive nations most newspapers are ‘crap.’ He identifies the aim of independent political blogs as being heard. Having worked as an Australian journalist he admits that editorial stances put considerable constraints on journalists and that having an independent blog gives the writer much greater autonomy.

For James, having little contact with the outside world, blogging gave him an outlet to communicate with others and process his own experiences in Sudan. He started it as a way of keeping in touch with family and friends, and was surprised that it attracted a much broader audience over time.

Christian started his blog just to amuse some of his friends.

Community and Feedback
Christian admits that he no longer reads comments because they are really vicious and that apparently there is some sort of ‘race war’ going on within the comments on his blog. Negative comments don’t encourage writing. He also notes a difference between the kind of feedback he gets from email as opposed to via blog comments, explaining that the ratio of positive email to negative is 100:1. He doesn’t believe in comment moderation, laughing as he explains that, “You can delete the comment but you can’t delete the person.”

Similarly Antony explains that comments do not form a large part of his writing. He does however have a novel approach for dealing with particularly oddball or offensive comments. He takes them and publishes them on a special page within his blog including their email addresses.

For James blog feedback was his only connection to the larger world and in his experience the comments were mostly positive. He suggests that blogging offers an opportunity to connect not just with information, but with people – and people you wouldn’t ordinarily have the opportunity to connect with. When he was struggling to heal a three year old boy he made information about the patient’s symptoms available online (including photographs, obscuring the boy’s face for privacy and security reasons). With the assistance of the collective wisdom of his readership, he was able to reach a diagnosis.

You can read part two here.

John Lacey » Christian Lander

Notes on Brisbane Writers’ Festival

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The Blogosphere: Part II

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The Blogosphere: Part I

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