Hazel Edwards and Garry Disher

As part of the Baw Baw Shire's Literary Celebrations on Saturday 21st July there were talks given by Hazel Edwards and Garry Disher at the Old Butter Factory, Drouin.

The last time I was in Drouin I was with Beryl Anderson and I was with her again today.

Hazel seemed to have lost weight since I last saw her in 1998, but she said no. She was vivacious. She talked about blogs in the morning and focused on the blog created by her son when he travelled by bike from Ireland across Europe.

Using the blog as a basis they wrote a book together about it. Not a topic I'm interested in but it has sold well because of the number of people interested in biking.

In the afternoon we had another session with Hazel and she spoke about her Antaractic trip. Now this was something I was more interested in as Cliff's step brother Graham Wills was in the Antaractic around 2000.

Cliff says he has a book that mentions everyone who has been in the Antaractic and when they were there and it has Graham's name in it. He will try to find it for me. He's not sure when it was published.

As a result of her trip Hazel wrote:-
"Antarctic Writer on Ice" a non fiction book about the trip.
"Antarctic Dad" a childrens fiction picture book.
An adult fictional book based on the first book.
A book were you insert a child's name.
A sign lanuage DVD.

I bought the first two. The first one for me. The second one to replace the 'lost' book I had bought Kirsten. It is a first edition. One never knows it may be worth money in a hundred years. In a picture towards the end of the book there is a class room scene with a cork board. Hazel's photo is actually on the board.

I also bought another of Hazel's books about writing and a teenage novel "Outback Ferals" about a pandemic in Australia.

Garry Disher spoke about making the characters in your story alive. Ironic perhaps because he himself was looking very tired and washed out. A good talk though.

I was not interested in his teenage books, but did buy his Challis series of four detective books and am reading "The Dragon Man."

Before Hazel and Garry gave their afternoon talk there was a drumming workshop. We had to go to the very bowels of the factory down what seemed like hundreds of stairs and a number of us were having difficulties. When we reached the area the man and woman in charge insisted everyone stand up and take part. Beryl and I had to explain that was not possible after the stair feat so along with the two women with canes were allowed to sit down. Garry Disher just wanted to sit and observe the workshop and the woman said no he had to take part. He left. His action surprised many people. Hazel threw herself into the activity and was laughting and banging away with a vengeance.

I was surprised by the poor response. I could not see any of the fellow FAW members but there were a number of other Writing students from TAFE there and I believe a good time was had by all. The cost for the whole day, including lunch, which consisted of sandwiches, was $35. If you only went in the afternoon it was $25. Not bad really.