THE BYRON SHIRE ECHO Advertising & news enquiries: Mullumbimby 02 6684 1777 Byron Bay 02 6685 5222 Fax 02 6684 1719 editor@echo.net.au adcopy@echo.net.au Available early Tuesday at: http://www.echo.net.au VOLUME 22 #08 TUESDAY, JULY 31, 2007 22,300 copies every week
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Writers festival 2007: more journalists than you could poke a writ at
Clockwise from to left: Angus Page following in his father’s footsteps into part-time stand-up comedy. Kate Crawford is talking size of intellect in a discussion on the dumbing down of Australians. David Marr self-censoring. Mungo has Piers Akerman where he doesn’t want him. Mandy and Alex pretend they understand Sophia’s bikini line reference. Age is often a barrier to understanding blank verse. Mehrun Siraj and Zahra Ghahramani do not echo the same view of Islam, and Anthony Lowenstein gives the lowdown on blogs. Photos Jeff ‘Worded Up’ Dawson
This year’s Byron Bay Writers Festival, which drew a crowd estimated at 10,000, brought journalists out from behind their keyboards and onto the stage to exchange ideas with their peers and willing audiences over last Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Reptiles of the press as diverse as David Marr and Paul Sheehan covered subjects such as human rights, foreign policy and the process of getting the
story itself. There was plenty for literature lovers too, with Robert Drewe on the short story and Stephen Sewell on Australian theatre. The bigger issues of the day had lively and sometimes heated airings – global warming, religion and terrorism, to name a few. Lighter moments included Charles Firth, Anita Heiss and Bryan Dawe on making the reader laugh and Mandy Nolan putting young comedians through
their paces. Before the customary farewell drinks at the bar, Barry Jones, Mungo MacCallum and Michael Gawenda mostly discussed Australia’s ambivalent relationship with the United States, while China and India got a look-in too. Over the four days many conclusions were reached but as is the case with all good debates, and journalism in general, many questions were left hanging as well.
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