One of the things I was kicking myself for missing out on at last year's WORD Christchurch festival was the Bad Diaries Salon. So you can imagine my happiness at seeing its return to WORD Christchurch's Shifting Points of View Programme.
What is the Bad Diaries Salon? Started in Melbourne by Jenny Ackland, this is a series of events at which writers read from the good, the bad and the scandalous of their personal diaries and early writing.
The writers appearing in this instalment of the event are diverse selection of local talent, with children's author and poet Ben Brown, novelist and WORD Christchurch director Rachael King, YA author Karen Healey and poet Tusiata Avia. The event will be hosted by novelist Tracy Farr.
I have recently had the experience of digging out my own youthful journal-keeping efforts and it was a very "cringe-heavy" experience. The great thing about the Bad Diaries Salon isn't that it won't be cringey - only that there'll be a degree of separation (a lack of personal responsibility on my part) from said cringiness.
I do love a bit of self-revelatory, confessional-style writing (anything by David Sedaris, The Princess Diarist etc.) and I expect this event will deliver in spades. The only question is which variety will be on offer? Teenage crushes? Overwrought poetry? "Deep" philosophical insights? Or perhaps the crushing banality of "Things I bought at the mall"? Or something else entirely? There's no way to know, and sadly, due to the rules around the event, I won't be able to tell you afterward so you'll just have to head along and see/hear for yourself.
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WORD Christchurch Shifting Points of View
WORD Christchurch presents Shifting Points of View — a spectacular line-up of New Zealand and international speakers to warm you up and get you thinking. Shifting Points of View runs from Sunday 18 August to Saturday 14 September 2019. Visit our page on WORD Christchurch Shifting Points of View for more information, previews, reviews, and WORD reading.
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