What I’m grateful for August 19/ 20...

1. DEADLY STUDENTS: I was fortunate enough to have some very creative, well behaved, totally engaged and interesting students come through my workshops as part of the CLIC festival these past days. A big shout out to the students from Sadadeen, Living Waters, Bradshaw, and OLSH.
2. TEACHERS WHO DO THEIR JOBS: For someone who is not teacher trained and doesn’t have children of their own, I’m not remotely interested or trained in disciplining children in the classroom. So I am grateful to those teachers who don’t see visiting writers as an hour off for them just to read the paper, send text messages or sit and chat with each other. So, thank you to those teachers who involved themselves in the creative writing classes I ran.
3. THREE MINUTES OF FAME: As part of the CLIC festival dinner all authors were asked to speak about their ‘real job’. I was fascinated to learn that Narelle Oliver was a taxidermist, Pamela Lofts was a brain surgeon who performed her own lobotomy, Brian Faulkner was a Kiwi rapper (otherwise known as a Krapper), Archie Fusillo was a political speech writer and I was apparently a ‘lady of the night’. I’ll let you know how that career move is going in due course. I was grateful for the fabulous fun, the friendly locals who welcomed us and all our antics, and to the venue and staff at Madigan’s @ Desert Park. Pic of Pamela and Narelle above.
4. ARALUEN ARTS CENTRE: I spent a wonderful afternoon soaking up some world famous art including originals by Albert Namatjira but also new works in the Namatjira: The next generation collection. It highlighted for me my absolute inability to do anything of the visual arts nature, which made me appreciate the work even more. You can read about the Big hART Namatjira project here.
5. CHOCOLATE DATES: No, I don’t mean dark coloured fellas who take me out to dinner. I mean the fruit! I’ve gained weight this week and I’m convinced it’s because I haven’t been having my regular (to keep me regular) on my oats of a morning. So you can imagine my extreme gratitude to see plate of dates – albeit covered in chocolate – in the writers ‘Green Corner’ (a pseudo green room) at today’s festival. I had to eat them for ‘health reasons’. And they were delicious. I feel better already.