Editors at the Perth Festival 2020
by Michèle Drouart
As part of the Perth Festival 2020, Fremantle Press conducted ‘The Business of Being a Writer’, a whole day of panels and discussions, in the Winthrop Hall Undercroft of the University of Western Australia on Saturday 22 February. Editors WA was one of five groups to be offered a table for promoting what we do – a great opportunity to let writers know about IPEd. The other four groups were the three writers’ centres: FAWWA (Swanbourne), KSP (Greenmount) and Edith Cowan (Joondalup) as well as WA Poets Inc., who run Poetry d’Amour.
During the four sessions we heard writers, editors, publishers and booksellers speak on such topics as copyright, contracts, marketing, distribution, self-publishing and manuscript editing. Between sessions, members of the 100+ audience came milling around our tables, and many showed an interest in EdWA. They asked lots of questions about editing and other related topics, and they took away copies of our flyer and several bookmarks. Our poster sitting up on an easel on our table looked respectable at least, if nowhere near the size of the posters and banners that stood behind the tables of the writers’ centres.
The sessions were all worthwhile and interesting, the last being full of practical advice on editing and publishing. A pity this session was not on earlier, as more of the audience would probably have come to our table afterwards; instead, we had to pack everything away after the last session so that another event could be set up.
What mattered was having a presence at last after several years. The day was a fine start to what I hope will become a tradition again for us at EdWA: a loud (i.e. conspicuous) and proud presence at the writers’ weekend event in every annual Perth Festival.
As a committee member of EdWA, I ran the working group on EdWA’s presence at the Perth Festival and was in charge of setting up and minding our table at this event.
Helen Renwick and Michèle Drouart
Photo: Lisa Sharp