A weekend in the country
Mar. 27th, 2023 09:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lizbeeOne of the great things about having a car and being licensed to use it is that I can go off and do all the interesting things that are difficult to access by public transport.
Take the Clunes Booktown Festival, for example. Every year, this tiny country town shuts down its main street and opens itself to booksellers and authors. By all accounts it's a complete omnishambles behind the scenes and every single local author I know has A Clunes Story. But I like books, authors and quaint country towns, so I was excited to finally go.
First of all, I had to get there. The other great thing about being The Driver is that I can stop whenever I need a bathroom break. Which is often. And I'm getting much better at overtaking slow cars. The speed limit is 110kph, grandma, not 90! On the other hand, I wish I knew how my car's cruise control works, because after an hour my leg started to cramp.
Clunes is in a nice, hilly area where lots of houses have signs protesting the erection of 5G antennae. Unrelated: the place has terrible mobile reception. I was on 3G most of the time, which was a challenge since I tend to run my finances on the assumption that I can always move money between savings accounts as needed. I had to get cash out, guys. Cash. I haven't handled physical money since March 2020.
I was in town for all of five minutes before I found and bought a bunch of 1980s Starlog magazines, and wound up exceeding my pre-set book budget by $10. (Please do not ask how much my book budget was.) Mostly I hung around the secondhand stalls and filled gaps in series I already owned part of, but I wound up buying a bunch of new books as well. And also The Castle of Llyr by Lloyd Alexander, the exact edition I had when I was eight, so I guess I'm buying the rest of the Prydain books now.
But actually I was there for the panels. Especially Russia's Soviet Past: Writing Soviet History from a Post-Soviet Space, featuring Professor Joy Damousi and Professor Sheila "basically invented Soviet studies" Fitzpatrick.
I loved this panel, but also found it frustrating -- Professor Fitzpatrick talked about how historians cannot predict the future, and, for example, no one saw the formation or fall of the Soviet Union coming, but then Professor Damousi and the audience Q&A kept bringing her back to the war on Ukraine and asking, for example, what will happen when Putin dies.
I was sitting there going, THIS ISN'T HER AREA! HER SPECIALTY IS COLLECTIVISATION IN THE 1920s AND 30s! But also I was struggling to resist the urge to go back to uni and enrol in postgraduate Soviet studies focusing on the social history of the Brezhnev to Gorbachev era. (I reckon I could learn Russian, but they'd probably expect me to have an understanding of Soviet political philosophy, and, uh, no.) So that was fascinating but frustrating.
Gloves, Gowns and Foundation Garments: fashioning femininity was another academic panel. Dr Sarah Bendall gave a 20 minute overview of the history of the corset for laypeople, which didn't have very much that I didn't know already, but it was nonetheless interesting to see her break down stereotypes. Her work involves recreating historical foundation garments and getting her models to perform physical activities. I went straight out and bought her book -- I may not sit down and read it cover to cover, but I suspect it will be a valuable resource for various bits and pieces of writing over the years.
Then Dr Lorinda Cramer spoke about reuse, repair and recycling of clothing on the goldfields -- Clunes was a gold town in the 19th century -- and what we know about the lives of lower middle class woman in the gold rush era from their letters and clothing. Again, it was fairly basic stuff, but I enjoyed it. Though not so much that I didn't skip out on the Q&A for fear of missing my next panel.
Focusing on Zoomers was the middle grade panel. The chair opened by admitting that, until she was asked to chair this event, she had not read any middle grade fiction since Enid Blyton. I cringed, but it wound up being a really good discussion about the challenges of writing for young people in 2023. Are zoomers really substantially different from previous generations? Yes and no; a lot of the challenges are external -- concern about book bans in America and gatekeepers in Australia, depicting prejudice without giving bullies weapons to use against their victims. Many middle grade readers right now have a sophisticated grasp of story but relatively limited vocabulary or language skills, and there's a need for fiction which forms a bridge between Captain Underpants/Diary of a Wimpy Kid and the denser material that's written for older middle graders.
My favourite part of the panel was a comment-not-a-question from a woman who said she had been looking forward to buying Enid Blyton for her grandchildren, but now she's going to read current middle grade works so she and her family can discover new stories together. Consensus from the panel is that there's room for both new works and classics, depending on a reader's interests.
My last panel was the 3pm From Within A Living Museum: Telling stories of the Chinese on the Goldfields, but I think this must have been a mistake, because the 1:30pm Cities of Silver, Cities of Gold: Chinese Migration to Australia and the Pacific seems much more interesting and featured an academic whose work I've been indirectly following for a few years. But I only realised the error at 1:15, when I was waiting for my lunch, and I was too tired and hungry to do anything about it.
I found the Living Museum panel interesting, but deeply troubling -- it featured staff from Sovereign Hill, a local immersive gold rush museum. Every Victorian kid goes at least once in school, but I grew up in Queensland, so I've never been. The panel covered the development of the Chinese Protectorate Camp exhibit and how the museum presents the history of Chinese on the goldfields, and specifically anti-Chinese sentiment, to visitors.
I found the discussion overwhelmingly centred on whiteness. For example, Sovereign Hill employs a lot of actors as interactive guides, but they found their Chinese actors had insufficient English skills to communicate with white visitors. "So they hired more Chinese-Australians," I assumed.
No. They replaced the Chinese actors with interactive technology, and introduced a play in the form of a town meeting where various actors debate whether or not to introduce an anti-Chinese bill. At the end, the audience gets to vote on whether or not to allow the Chinese to stay on the goldfields. Apparently "most" people vote in favour of the Chinese.
By this point my shoulders were up around my ears. I've heard my friends of colour talk about how museums are unsafe spaces for them, but I never understood so clearly why. When we got to the Q&A I put my hand up and, in my nicest nice white lady voice, asked what feedback they had from the Chinese-Australian community about the exhibits and play.
The answer was none. There was anecdotal evidence that they thought it was great, but then the gentleman who answered started talking about Chinese visitors, as in, tourists from the PRC and Taiwan. Who are not unimportant, but it's different when it's your own community getting to have a fun interactive vote on your rights.
They wrapped up by saying the whole Chinese section of the museum is currently undergoing refurbishments, and they are seeking feedback from the community, and also looking at how plantation museums in the US are developing a best practice to depict the reality of slavery without retraumatising African-American employees and guests. But that was kind of introduced as an afterthought, not a focus of the panel.
I went home marvelling at the caucacity of it all, and also once again regretting that I had forgotten to read the cruise control instructions. I arrived in the early evening, face planted on my bed for an hour before my flatmate fed me a delicious meal and my cat eventually deigned to acknowledge my presence.
Take the Clunes Booktown Festival, for example. Every year, this tiny country town shuts down its main street and opens itself to booksellers and authors. By all accounts it's a complete omnishambles behind the scenes and every single local author I know has A Clunes Story. But I like books, authors and quaint country towns, so I was excited to finally go.
First of all, I had to get there. The other great thing about being The Driver is that I can stop whenever I need a bathroom break. Which is often. And I'm getting much better at overtaking slow cars. The speed limit is 110kph, grandma, not 90! On the other hand, I wish I knew how my car's cruise control works, because after an hour my leg started to cramp.
Clunes is in a nice, hilly area where lots of houses have signs protesting the erection of 5G antennae. Unrelated: the place has terrible mobile reception. I was on 3G most of the time, which was a challenge since I tend to run my finances on the assumption that I can always move money between savings accounts as needed. I had to get cash out, guys. Cash. I haven't handled physical money since March 2020.
I was in town for all of five minutes before I found and bought a bunch of 1980s Starlog magazines, and wound up exceeding my pre-set book budget by $10. (Please do not ask how much my book budget was.) Mostly I hung around the secondhand stalls and filled gaps in series I already owned part of, but I wound up buying a bunch of new books as well. And also The Castle of Llyr by Lloyd Alexander, the exact edition I had when I was eight, so I guess I'm buying the rest of the Prydain books now.
But actually I was there for the panels. Especially Russia's Soviet Past: Writing Soviet History from a Post-Soviet Space, featuring Professor Joy Damousi and Professor Sheila "basically invented Soviet studies" Fitzpatrick.
I loved this panel, but also found it frustrating -- Professor Fitzpatrick talked about how historians cannot predict the future, and, for example, no one saw the formation or fall of the Soviet Union coming, but then Professor Damousi and the audience Q&A kept bringing her back to the war on Ukraine and asking, for example, what will happen when Putin dies.
I was sitting there going, THIS ISN'T HER AREA! HER SPECIALTY IS COLLECTIVISATION IN THE 1920s AND 30s! But also I was struggling to resist the urge to go back to uni and enrol in postgraduate Soviet studies focusing on the social history of the Brezhnev to Gorbachev era. (I reckon I could learn Russian, but they'd probably expect me to have an understanding of Soviet political philosophy, and, uh, no.) So that was fascinating but frustrating.
I got a ticket to Dark Mirrors: Visions of Tomorrow in Australian Speculative Fiction at the last moment because I ... felt like I should go to a spec fic panel. This one was obviously very heavy on the climate change fiction, which I'm not into, but the authors included Grace Chan, who has just been nominated for a major literary award for her debut SF novel. Which is not unheard of in Australia, but rarely is the SF aspect so overt. I didn't buy it this weekend because large format paperbacks don't agree with my hands, but I'm very eager to read it.
(It was notable just how many book stalls were dedicated to self-published and small press SF and fantasy. As was discussed on the panel, there is tremendous demand for speculative fiction in Australia, but in general the major publishers won't touch it -- if you're an Australian author of speculative fiction, your best option is to sell to an overseas publisher and have your book imported. So clearly I need to get over my bias against self-published fiction, but ugh, it's all so ... cheap looking.)
That was Saturday done for me, and I drove out to my friend's house in the country, where she gave me some time to myself followed by a good meal, good company and a very soft guest bed. I entertained a brief fantasy where, in addition to doing postgraduate Soviet Studies, I moved to the country. (In this fantasy, I am independently wealthy.)
Gloves, Gowns and Foundation Garments: fashioning femininity was another academic panel. Dr Sarah Bendall gave a 20 minute overview of the history of the corset for laypeople, which didn't have very much that I didn't know already, but it was nonetheless interesting to see her break down stereotypes. Her work involves recreating historical foundation garments and getting her models to perform physical activities. I went straight out and bought her book -- I may not sit down and read it cover to cover, but I suspect it will be a valuable resource for various bits and pieces of writing over the years.
Then Dr Lorinda Cramer spoke about reuse, repair and recycling of clothing on the goldfields -- Clunes was a gold town in the 19th century -- and what we know about the lives of lower middle class woman in the gold rush era from their letters and clothing. Again, it was fairly basic stuff, but I enjoyed it. Though not so much that I didn't skip out on the Q&A for fear of missing my next panel.
Focusing on Zoomers was the middle grade panel. The chair opened by admitting that, until she was asked to chair this event, she had not read any middle grade fiction since Enid Blyton. I cringed, but it wound up being a really good discussion about the challenges of writing for young people in 2023. Are zoomers really substantially different from previous generations? Yes and no; a lot of the challenges are external -- concern about book bans in America and gatekeepers in Australia, depicting prejudice without giving bullies weapons to use against their victims. Many middle grade readers right now have a sophisticated grasp of story but relatively limited vocabulary or language skills, and there's a need for fiction which forms a bridge between Captain Underpants/Diary of a Wimpy Kid and the denser material that's written for older middle graders.
My favourite part of the panel was a comment-not-a-question from a woman who said she had been looking forward to buying Enid Blyton for her grandchildren, but now she's going to read current middle grade works so she and her family can discover new stories together. Consensus from the panel is that there's room for both new works and classics, depending on a reader's interests.
My last panel was the 3pm From Within A Living Museum: Telling stories of the Chinese on the Goldfields, but I think this must have been a mistake, because the 1:30pm Cities of Silver, Cities of Gold: Chinese Migration to Australia and the Pacific seems much more interesting and featured an academic whose work I've been indirectly following for a few years. But I only realised the error at 1:15, when I was waiting for my lunch, and I was too tired and hungry to do anything about it.
I found the Living Museum panel interesting, but deeply troubling -- it featured staff from Sovereign Hill, a local immersive gold rush museum. Every Victorian kid goes at least once in school, but I grew up in Queensland, so I've never been. The panel covered the development of the Chinese Protectorate Camp exhibit and how the museum presents the history of Chinese on the goldfields, and specifically anti-Chinese sentiment, to visitors.
I found the discussion overwhelmingly centred on whiteness. For example, Sovereign Hill employs a lot of actors as interactive guides, but they found their Chinese actors had insufficient English skills to communicate with white visitors. "So they hired more Chinese-Australians," I assumed.
No. They replaced the Chinese actors with interactive technology, and introduced a play in the form of a town meeting where various actors debate whether or not to introduce an anti-Chinese bill. At the end, the audience gets to vote on whether or not to allow the Chinese to stay on the goldfields. Apparently "most" people vote in favour of the Chinese.
By this point my shoulders were up around my ears. I've heard my friends of colour talk about how museums are unsafe spaces for them, but I never understood so clearly why. When we got to the Q&A I put my hand up and, in my nicest nice white lady voice, asked what feedback they had from the Chinese-Australian community about the exhibits and play.
The answer was none. There was anecdotal evidence that they thought it was great, but then the gentleman who answered started talking about Chinese visitors, as in, tourists from the PRC and Taiwan. Who are not unimportant, but it's different when it's your own community getting to have a fun interactive vote on your rights.
They wrapped up by saying the whole Chinese section of the museum is currently undergoing refurbishments, and they are seeking feedback from the community, and also looking at how plantation museums in the US are developing a best practice to depict the reality of slavery without retraumatising African-American employees and guests. But that was kind of introduced as an afterthought, not a focus of the panel.
I went home marvelling at the caucacity of it all, and also once again regretting that I had forgotten to read the cruise control instructions. I arrived in the early evening, face planted on my bed for an hour before my flatmate fed me a delicious meal and my cat eventually deigned to acknowledge my presence.
