Adelaide Writers’ Festival

Posted on by scott

I’m headed to the Adelaide Writers’ Festival in a few weeks, so I’m hoping to see some of you South Australian fans there.

adfest_logo

Here’s my schedule:

SUNDAY MARCH 3, 5PM
WEST STAGE
Pioneer Women’s Memorial Garden
Leviathan: Scott Westerfeld (US/AUS)
This is me having a long chat with my old buddy Sean Williams. We will be talking about All Of The Stuff.
Click here for more.

MONDAY MARCH 4, 5PM
EAST STAGE
Pioneer Women’s Memorial Garden
Highways to a War: A Reading
War stories are among our oldest narratives and this session of readings will explore some of our more recent wars. Christopher Koch has taken us to Cambodia, Vietnam and Indonesia. Peter Robb has introduced us to the mean streets of Italy and Brazil. Tom Keneally has chronicled both the World Wars. Scott Westerfeld explores an alternative First World War and Ross McMullin chronicles the letters home.

It looks like I’ll be doing a reading for this second one, and with Tom Keneally! (AKA the guy who wrote Schindler’s Ark.) Click here for more.

For more details about the festival, click here. Note that these sessions are FREE, and at the Pioneer Women’s Memorial Garden.

79 thoughts on “Adelaide Writers’ Festival”

  3. wow, now this is too far for me. my school would never approve this as an excused absence, even though it should be. 🙁

  6. I’m so excited! I totally jumped around, trying not to be too loud for my unwell sister, when I found out you were going to be at Writers’ Week! 😀

  9. Also, you can get lights in the shape of bowler hats (I WANT ONE). Random, even with the boffin reference. Just throught that information would be interesting.

  16. woah
    this is totally random, but i was ramdomly on the TMI/shadowhunter website and i looked at the videos…and scott westerfeld interviewed cassandra clare?!

  17. @16 whaaaaat???!!! i’m not sure if that’s like so cool or so weird… i’m finding this video for myself now!

  18. Is “I live too far away” a legit excuse for not going to this? Because I’d kinda have to cross the planet to get there lol

  19. @16: I’VE WATCHED THAT VIDEO!!!!!!!!!!!! And your comment was all the more sweet to my ears (eyes? XD) because I’ve been on a major Malec binge these past few days, when not doing APEuro notes. (So much sadness. Why can’t the people I love just be happy? Like Deryn and Alek. They’re happy.)

    And guess what we’ve stepped onto in APEuro? A little something I like to call THE ROAD TO SARAJEVO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Even though, it’s like a century beforehand, but if you want to be really specific, you’d have to go back to the beginning of time because everything results from something before it: Napoleon from the French Revolution, the French Revolution from the Enlightenment, etc. Nothing occurs in a vacuum. ^^ WWI is mentioned on like every page now. But we’re still five chapters away….

    (Speaking of which, I hate when people Anglicize the simplest names. Francis?! What??!! IT’S FRANZ!!!!!!! XD)

  20. @18 – yeah, me too. I sort of feel bad about saying that because of Scott’s comment about airplanes on the last thread.
    sorry, Scott… it’s a bit too far for me 🙁

  21. ah, airplanes… why must you be so expensive? all i want to do is visit my favorite author, but no.

    maybe i could figure out how to get uber rich then i’d get a private jet and travel the world with fellow Westerfeld fans and everything would be happy. or i can just stay at home, fantasizing about that.

  22. @19 APeuro is two years away for me, but that is the single most-looked-forward-to class of my high school career. (But I may end up taking the IB equivalent anyways, Europe and the Middle East)

  23. @22: Don’t get me wrong, I love history. It’s just our textbook spends like five chapters going over the same 200 years. Very, very slowly. Plus it’s all politics and economy, except for that tiny bit they did at the end of Napoleon’s chapter on Romanticism. After all that logic, it was wonderful, but then they just dismissed it, because most people were still paying attention to the Enlightenment and logic and the French Revolution and yackum. Can’t. Wait. For. World. War. One!

    (And haha 1820s: Russia became Serbia’s formal protector. I know these things already. Leviathan <3)

    It was funny, because our teacher asked the class if anyone knew what started WWI, and the guy she called on only said something vague about Serbia and 'an Austrian archduke", while I was muttering all the details under my breath. I think she saw me because she asked me about it later, about who or where exactly or something. I just remember tacking on: "With his wife, Sophie." (She looked sort of confused, like she didn't know who I was talking about.) Because even the textbook doesn't have her name. I wrote it in. 🙂

    (I hate how little recognition Sophie gets. The one place I found her actual name was a tour guide of Vienna, and they weren't even killed in Vienna! *fumes* Okay, I won't start ranting so early in the morning….)

  24. History in your schools sounds so much fun than mine. Here, the teacher just gives us a guide for two months of school and we have to do it all. And both the book and the teacher explain stuff like we were little children. An explanation that should take 5 minutes takes 2 hours in my class!

    I was so looking forward to WW1, but it ended up being a class of “you read the book and that’s it”. And it was just one class!!

  25. @16 and 17 and 19
    So i cant remember what book it was, but in Cassandra Claire’s Mortal instruments series she thanked SCOTT WESTERFELD in her acknowledgments.
    DO ALL AUTHORS JUST KNOW EACH OTHER?

  27. @24: Aww, I’m so sorry. I would hate that.

    @25: I NOTICED THAT, TOO.

    Guys, I have to do a quickwrite for English on FATE vs. FREE WILL. It’s for Oedipus Rex, but do you know who I immediately thought of? gyahAlekIloveyousomuch

    “What if destiny doesn’t care?”
    —
    Deryn opened her mouth to argue, then hesitated, a half smile crossing her face. “So you must think that we’re meant to be together.”
    —

    ‘cuz he talks about destiny so much <3

    (It's sort of weird quoting that on Scott's blog. I did it off the top of my head and I'm pretty sure it's right. I mean, I have so much of those books memorized. Is that weird? I bet there are tons of people at school who think I talk to myself; really I'm just quoting. LEVIATHAN IS SO QUOTABLE.)

    O.o

  28. @27 I have so much of those books memorized, I’m buying them in Spanish so I can improve my vocabulary with words that are actually useful.

  30. the Hapsburgs were on Jeopardy! tonight. i totally got the clue the moment Alex said Austria. my dad, who knows the entire history of the world, couldn’t figure it out. thank you, Scott, for educating me on some of Europe’s history!

  31. @28: I’m trying to get them in German, especially to see how they do how Deryn doesn’t understand German in her chapters of Leviathan, because the whole thing would be in German. ^^

    @29: Not that I know of. I’ve heard her father’s name used in some fanfics, or just random names that people stuck there. But I don’t know if there’s an official one. Scott?

    @30: OMYGOSH WHY DON’T I WATCH JEOPARDY MORE OFTEN? I would’ve gone into fits of uncontrollable ecstatic-ness. Really uncontrollable. And I would have probably attempted to recite the books backwards or something.

    “Are your relations completely barking mad?”
    “No, we’re rulers of an empire.”

    And they’re all over my history textbook. <333 And the reason I love Tonia (Maria Antonia aka Marie Antoinette). It's weird, because I've read so many books on her, yet it wasn't until like the fourth or fifth one that they even mentioned her being a Hapsburg. Obviously, I knew already, but none of the others ever mentioned it. This one, though, had the Hapsburg motto and everything. The fact that she belonged to such a family made her stand taller when the French court called her names. 🙂 They had her name as Maria Antonia von Hapsburg-Lorraine, or something. (That last because of her father.)

    I can't help but ramble, can I? Leaving now….

  32. @31 (to the first part) I’ve always wondered that as well. The next part of my plan is to get the books on German, so I can learn some of that too.

    Also, I think it’s great when the Hapsburgs show up in my books. Even though most of what I read is about the history of Europe, they are mentioned less than you would think.

  36. Also, even though it has nothing to do with anything, I’d really quickly like to post this quote from one of my favorite musicians and actors:

    “My kids are starting to notice I’m a little different from the other dads. ‘Why don’t you have a straight job like everyone else?’ they asked me the other day.

    “I told them this story:

    “In the forest, there was a crooked tree and a straight tree. Every day, the straight tree would say to the crooked tree, ‘Look at me… I’m tall, and I’m straight, and I’m handsome. Look at you… You’re all crooked and bent over. No one wants to look at you.’ And they grew up in that forest together. And then one day the loggers came, and they saw the crooked tree and the straight tree, and they said, ‘Just cut the straight trees and leave the rest.’ So the loggers turned all the straight trees into lumber and toothpicks and paper. And the crooked tree is still there, growing stronger and stranger every day.”

    – Tom Waits

  37. Sgt. Pepper- wow, that’s actually a really cool story. Sounded kind of familiar, though I can’t manage to remember any other story with crooked trees 🙂
    What kind of music does Tom Waits play? (Sory if that’s a little ignorant on my part)

  38. @ Middy Me – Wow, THAT’S a tough question to answer! What kind of music does Tom Waits play? That’s rather like asking what genre the movie Pulp Fiction is. He’s pretty much indescribable, at least in generic terms. His style can range from rustic folk to scat singing jazz to dirty blues and far beyond. His raspy voice can be an acquired taste for some, but most of his fans, myself included, couldn’t imagine him without it. He’s a true poet, one of the few. Here’s a few links to some tunes of his. The fourth one is a cover by that band The Spring Standards who A Dude was talking about a little while ago.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knII3S0MZtY

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4zDaTESGvQ

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8YcEmKleJk

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glbqtyFqdJY

  40. Yes, it is! Then why can’t I post a response to Middy Me? I keep trying to post one and it just says “duplicate comment deleted. It looks like you’ve already posted that!” and I swear I haven’t! This is seriously weird…

  42. @ Middy Me – Wow, THAT’S a tough question to answer! What kind of music does Tom Waits play? That’s rather like asking what genre the movie Pulp Fiction is. He’s pretty much indescribable, at least in generic terms. His style can range from rustic folk to scat singing jazz to dirty blues and far beyond. His raspy voice can be an acquired taste for some, but most of his fans, myself included, couldn’t imagine him without it. He’s a true poet, one of the few. Here’s a few links to some tunes of his. The fourth one is a cover by a band called The Spring Standards. Check them out too! Hopefully these links work.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knII3S0MZtY

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4zDaTESGvQ

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8YcEmKleJk

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glbqtyFqdJY

  44. Sgt. Pepper, just write it like a regular comment, I’ll know it’s for me.
    Or is it some other problem?

  45. @ Middy Me – Wow, THAT’S a tough question to answer! What kind of music does Tom Waits play? That’s rather like asking what genre the movie Pulp Fiction is. He’s pretty much indescribable, at least in generic terms. His style can range from rustic folk to scat singing jazz to dirty blues and far beyond. His raspy voice can be an acquired taste for some, but most of his fans, myself included, couldn’t imagine him without it. He’s a true poet, one of the few. Here’s a few links to some tunes of his. The fourth one is a cover by that band The Spring Standards whom A Dude was talking about a little while ago. Hopefully these links work.

  51. I figure this is a comment for the other post, but conversation is pretty much dead over there, so I’m writing it here:

    I’ve officially applied to Alpha! Let’s hope I make it, I wanna meet Scott so badly! Too bad previous attendance (supposedly) doesn’t help you get accepted.

  52. @49: Good luck! I have some final changes I want to make to my application story before I send everything in….I can feel paranoia setting in. Best of luck to you, though!

  53. @50: Good luck to you too. It’ll be pretty cool to actually meet some of you if we all get accepted!

  54. @51: Ahhh, yes! Don’t get me too excited, though. I’m terrified. O_O XD Going to work on my story now….

  56. ahh, Westerblog is such a reliable de-stresser. i’m so glad there were some new comments to read.
    most. stressful. longest. day. ever. of. my. life.

    @44-47, those are some great songs! really cool music! an awesome surprise

  58. @55: Good job! Now for 45 days of stress. Yikes! Although I think last year I might’ve gotten it a bit earlier than that…

  59. @56: I KNOW. I could’ve just died after I sent everything in. I was that nervous. Thank God my friend emailed me the stupidest video I’d seen in forever; it was a real stress-reliever.

  60. @57: That’s good. Videos of cats getting stuck in shoes and the like are excellent.
    20 people get accepted, but also 5 people get wait-listed, so even if you get on the wait list I’d still consider that a win. It’s good practice anyhow, if your serious about creative-writing. Speaking of which, I really need to work on my novel… 😛

  61. @58: WHOA I knew there was a person-limit, but I never sought it out because it would make me too terrified. 20 GAH.
    Ooh, hello, fellow novel-writer. I need to work on mine too….Preferably the one I actually finished, though I have several unfinished ones. With Scott and Justine’s daily NaNoWriMo tips from ’09 I finished my novel in 15 days (during August CampNaNoWriMo) and never looked at it again. Okay, I did look, but I couldn’t get over how many simple words I spelled wrong to do anything to it. I flinch when I look at it, but I know I have to edit it someday. Good luck with yours!

  62. Oops, sorry. I thought you knew that. Hey, I won’t say around how many apply, which I totally know. It could be 25 for all you know. 🙂
    I’ve never had the nerve to do NaNoWriMo. It scares me. I figure it’d probably be good for me if I did, but I’m not brave enough. And even if it’s crap (which I’m sure it’s not), at least you’ve finished one. I have yet to accomplish the task. I currently have five chapters consisting of 25,550 words, though. Unfortunately, I’m sorta stuck and majorly procrastinating about it.

  63. I suggest just skipping the sticky bit. I left a huge portion of world building undone in my novel because my mind when totally blank, and I rambled on and on about how exactly the world got to be the way it was (it’s futuristic) instead of how it actually was. I hate getting stuck, because the scenes I get stuck on are always the ones that worked best in my head. Ugh.
    NaNo isn’t that scary, really. Okay, so the first time I did it, I didn’t finish, but it was during school. But now there’s CampNaNoWriMo during the summer! You should try it. I’m always amazed when I go back to my journals and see all the extra time I had since there was no school. I even finished early. And who cares if it’s awful? Just you, mostly. And then you get perpetual bragging rights. Just imagine: I WROTE A NOVEL IN A MONTH. You can do it! 🙂

  64. @ Sgt. Pepper – wow, that guy’s got a real songwriting talent. I guess his voice could take a little getting used to, but I really enjoyed the songs, especially Hold On. Thanks yet again for introducing me to another awesome musician.

    In the meanwhile, let me recommend Voxtrot and the Cold War Kids 🙂

  65. @61: Maybe I’ll do it this summer, then. Except April seems awfully soon, and July, well I plan on having plans. 🙂
    I shall try to work on it. It’s not really that problematic, I guess it’s just getting started on a new chapter that never seems appealing…

  66. @63: You should! I’m pretty sure CampNaNo is in August and June, or at least it was last year. There is Script Frenzy in April, though. Unless they changed it around; I haven’t checked in awhile. I just know official NaNo is in Novemeber….
    I have a problem with finishing things, not starting them really; chapters or otherwise. My novel and short story for Alpha are the only stories I’ve actually completed (woe is me XD). I always complain about not having time to write, then when I do I’m sort of like:
    O.o I must have some other useless thing to do….XD

  67. @ Middy Me – Glad you like Tom Waits! I’ll check Voxtrot and the Cold War Kids as soon as possible. This music sharing is fun!

    “We are buried beneath the weight of information, which is being confused with knowledge; quantity is being confused with abundance and wealth with happiness.
    We are monkeys with money and guns.”

    – Tom Waits

  68. @ Sgt. Pepper –
    “We are all on different lanes,
    but we`ll always be on the same road”

    – Brad Arnold (3 Doors Down singer)

  69. @65: Oh, I thought the website said April and July…

    I tend to be pretty inconvenient when it comes to writing. I drag my feet whenever I’m in the middle of something. But whenever I’m done I’m like “Oh, I wanna work on it…oh wait I finished it already…”
    My brain is stupid.

  70. My whole life has bounced back after the work of Esango priest who restored my marriage. my lover and i have been apart for over 9 months, i have contacted so many spell casters to help me, but all of them failed me and went away with my money. A friend introduced me to this powerful man called Esango priest. my friend told me how he helped him and many other people to get their lover back. I actually contacted him, behold he actually did the spell and my lover came back to apologize to me. today we are happy again and living together as we used to be. I urge every one on this site searching for a real spell caster to go straight to Esango priest. he is a powerful man he will surely help you. His contact is esangopriest@hotmail.com

  71. @69, does he do pick-me-up spells? everyone’s got some serious “winter blues” laziness happening at my house.

  72. @68: That’s sort of like me right now. I really, really want to write about Leo and Briette (OCs from my novel), but then I remember I finished it and I’m too lazy to figure out the sequel. Even though I know the end of the trilogy….Plus, I have no time. Time hates me.

  73. @71: lol. One of my OC’s is named Leo, too!
    I also finally got around to starting chapter six. I’ve written about 1000 words. Yay me! But I haven’t done much since because I came down with an AWFUL fever and cough for the last couple of days. 🙁

  74. @72, i hope you get better! everyone at my school seems to be sick, too.

    happy daylight savings, everyone!

  75. @72: Yay, for you! Wow, what a coincidence. I spent forever trying to decide on Leo’s name. I can’t believe I ever considered naming him something else. Briette I always knew. She wasn’t originally in the same story at Leo, though. I hope you feel better!

    @73: I just found out today about daylight savings….time flies….

  76. @73, 74: Thanks for the well-wishes, you guys. I am definitely on the mend.

    @74: I actually had a lot of trouble picking Leo’s name too. Mine novel’s set in a kind of old-timey fairytale land, so I pretty much make up people’s names using the Latin for their most obvious traits. I just couldn’t find anything like that for Leo though, but I eventually decided on Leroy (meaning “king” [not in Latin] since he’s a prince) with Leo as a nickname.

    I suggest we take whatever conversation we have left to the new thread.

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