It was great to spend a day at the Adelaide Writers’ Week during the Arts Festival. I’ve been looking forward to attending this event for a long time, and I’m glad to have finally managed to go. Not only did I get to attend a few great talks from authors like - Ben Rice (UK), Andrew Taylor (UK), Mark Danner (USA), and Marele Day (Australia) — I also managed to bring home some good books to read. 
A couple of things that kept coming up during the talks are the concepts of “writing voice” and the process of completing a manuscript. While “voice” may be a bit more complicated to explain, it was good to hear different sides of the writing process, where majority of the writers advocated just getting through the first draft as fast as you can - without editing, researching, and getting bogged down with the little details. It’s more important to finish first then shape it all up later.
Marele Day, on the other hand, also gave the audience an insight in to creating a book with the aid of research, by sharing her experiences while writing Mrs. Cook. I love what she said about the role of artefacts in telling a story.
Mark Danner read his piece that talked about politics, journalism and fiction writing. Something he said about putting art in to truth through journalism and affixing the truth in art through fiction struck a chord in me.
I was definitely inspired to start reading and writing more. So yes, I’m definitely booking myself in for the next Writers’ Week.
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