The 10th of August 2016 saw me packing a bag and going to bunker down in Bendigo with family for a week. The purpose of which was to participate in a La Trobe University class, STC3WIA - Writers in Action, that was taught in and around the 2016 Bendigo Writers Festival.
It was a long drive, dark and cold, but as I traveled I reflected on the program I'd already perused and excitement stirred within me.
The first day was all uni based, housekeeping and details, and some anecdotes from the previous years festival helped build collective enthusiasm within the group for what the weekend ahead entailed.
Friday 3pm finally arrived and I squished through a small crowd at Capital Theater to find a good seat to see one of my idols Indira Naidoo speak. I was excited, pen and paper in hand, phone too, for tweeting purposes (something the Writers In Action course encouraged). Indira and presenter Fiona Parker arrived on stage a few minutes late to a large round of applause, I pressed my camera on my phone and took a few shots, loading the best one immediately to Instagram and Twitter with the hashtags #BWF2016 and #WIA2016. I was discreet about it, my phone's brightness was turned all the way down, the volume setting was on silent and I stayed low in my seat as to not block anyone's view, unfortunately to those around me though none of this seemed to matter. What mattered was, I was at a writer's festival; using technology, living on my phone, not respecting the author or presenter, interrupting other people's experience. No one actually said any of these comments to me directly, they are just sentences I heard floating in the air as I sat quietly trying to listen to what Indira had to say. These comments, made by complete strangers, interrupting my experience of something I was so looking forward to.
I put my phone down, one photo was all I had planned to take after all. I started jotting notes, a few great quotes and some probing questions about the subject material, but the initial events of the afternoon stirred something in me, I started looking around at the crowd. The age demographic was what hit me first, along with a few familiar WIA faces, we were the youngest there by far. Many people were talking quietly to the person next to them, mostly in disagreeing with progressive ideas coming from the stage, a few were kind comments but not many. I felt isolated in that moment. Is this really what a writers festival should be I thought? People have a whinge, complaining about the rudeness of a younger generation because a photo was taken, yet hypocritical having a (often judgemental) conversation to some sitting near them rather than showing respect to the person on stage and listening to what they have to say in full. Personally I'm not one for division, I believe that binaries and other methods of division are social constructs and not nature or necessary but I did feel very judge for being younger, a feeling on rejection washed over me. Suddenly the rest of the weekend didn't bring the excitement butterflies I felt the day before.
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