WOW!

I have to say, this was my first A Thousand Words festival and I wish it hadn't been.

Because, frankly, the quality of the speakers was amazing (and I am most certainly not putting myself in that category!), the topics were so interesting - I can't wait for next year and wish I had been to previous years!!

I know it's kind of crap that I'm writing this now instead of post one yesterday. I fully intended to but I was so zonked and then my sister and I went out for dinner and by the time I got home it was bed time! (Yes, that's me: in bed early on a Friday night, gosh I'm sad!)

I'm trying to remember all the awesome stuff that happened, but it's hard.

This was the first festival where I didn't take notes. Shocking I know. There ...

GUESS WHAT!

That time of year is upon us again, where we rejoice and go to A Thousand Words Festival!

Here's the media spin by (the fantastic and awesome) festival organiser Bec Kavanagh:

Not long now until the annual celebration of books that is A
Thousand Words Festival! In 2011 we’re bigger than ever with the biggest book swap, the festival gala, interactive performance panels and books, so many books!

If you’re on holidays and are a reader, wannabe writer, emerging editor, book fiend or sucker for a story come to the festival this year. On Friday the 23rd and Saturday the 24th of September you’ll be able to come down to the Northcote Town Hall and join other writers and book lovers to talk all things bookish. YA authors Tim Pegler, Leanne Hall, Cath Crowley, Fiona Wood join many more to present a ...

So, I was at Melbourne Free University all night. (And by all night I mean from 6.30pm-9pm).

This is MFU: The Melbourne Free University provides a platform for learning, discussion and debate which is open to everyone.  The MFU was established in 2010 in response to Australia’s increasingly outcome oriented education system, and aims to offer space for independent engagement with important contemporary ideas and issues.

Tonight was DIRTY DEEDS and it was amazing.

I've been on their mailing list for months but tonight is the first time I've gone. Pesky things like work often get in the way but tonight I was free!

At first I was scared it would be me and the panelists in the room as I arrived at about 6.10pm and was the first one there (*cough nerd cough*) and still by twenty-five past there was me and one ...

"Should we be made to recite old bush poetry that we're not really interested in?" My lecturer today asked everyone.

It made me think: should we? Should we really do anything that we're not interesting in? (Sine, Cosine and Tangent, I'm looking at you) (I particularly like how that website is called 'maths is fun!').

We were specifically talking about poetry and its decline, and the lecturer brought up some reasons that schools for teaching poetry, rather than just out-rightly saying that they're studying it because its beautiful and should be appreciated and studied. Instead, long, convoluted responses such as 'it will improve English and therefore later job prospects' are given.

I, for one, haven't made it a secret that I don't really like poetry.

Okay, okay, hate mail me, go for it. Some people don't like kid's books, some people don't like classics, ...

Thanks to Penguin Australia, I have a copy of each The Power of Six and Bloodlines to give away! Hoorah!

Simply leave your name in a comment below - or email me - indicating which title you'd like and you'll be in the running!

As everyone should know, The Power of Six is the next book in The Lorien Legacies series.

WE ARE THE LAST DEFENCE.

I've seen him on the news. Followed the stories about what happened to John Smith. To the world he's a mystery, but to me . . . he's one of us. Nine of us came here, but sometimes I wonder if time has changed us, if we all still believe in our mission.

There are six of us left. We're hiding, blending in, avoiding contact with one another, but our Legacies are developing and ...