Last week a couch came to my corner of Brooklyn, and I can quite honestly say it has transformed the humble apartment in which I sleep and write. Two lovely men transported the couch – a faux-velour job in a pale coffee color, inexcusably comfortable for the price – three blocks from leafy Sterling to our broader, less-leafy street. (In lieu of a couch pic, a 2007 photo of me at our nearest corner prior to the neighborhood’s rapid gentrification.) I rewarded them with what passes for reasonable Thai food in Brooklyn. The old stereo equipment that had not been connected to anything – not even to its former owner, who left it behind when she moved out – was removed. The oversize rectangular table, which you never could quite trust to stay upright, went the way of all trash. In short, the space that for the past two years had been mostly for storing excess stuff, has been anointed “the family room”.

The transformation in our lives was instantaneous. The Coming of the Couch was the first night in months that all three roomies sat down together and, by jiminy, conversed with each other. Beers were drunk, green curry chicken was eaten, people were … happy. Over the Labor Day weekend, one room-mate reinstated the TV/DVD player to the family room, and the three branches of our grafted family tree gathered there again, drawn to the room as to our own Brooklyn Triangle, watching a young Oliver Reed play a tormented boy who grows up to be a werewolf. A reminder to the fortunate, perhaps, that not all transformations are good ones.

The Girl With Closed Eyes Outside the Cat P. Bodega 2007

Trust covers: Australian (L) and US

A clairvoyant once told me I should be careful what I wish for. This year I wanted to start facilitating panel discussions on the writers’ festival circuit, and look what’s happened – four panels at Sydney Writers Festival in May, and five in three days at the Byron Bay Festival in early August.

For anyone not attending a Bret Easton Ellis or William McInnes event, I’ll be chatting with authors as different as Brenda Walker, Rodney Hall, Hannie Rayson, David Carlin, Kate Veitch*, and Yvonne Louis at the following sessions on Friday 6th, Saturday 7th, Sunday 8th August:

My space: spilling the beans on self – Friday 9am (!)
Voices in my head: writing dialogue that works – Friday 1.30pm
Return journey: stories of triumph over adversity – Saturday 9am (!!)
Secrets and yearnings: the writing of memory and memoir – Saturday 12.15pm
It came from outer space: where writers find their muse – Sunday 4pm (last session time of the Festival; for diehards only)

Please say hello. And to prove that festival-goers can’t get enough of memoirs, I’m even teaching a workshop on approaches to editing memoir (Thursday 5th August 1.30-4.30pm) – because I believe that helping authors develop an editorial perspective on their own work is an important and overlooked skill set.

*I’m particularly thrilled to have my good friend Kate Veitch on a panel with me as I’m very enthusiastic about her latest novel Trust, which has just gone on sale in the US this past week. If you check Amazon.com for the book you’ll even find a potted review by yours truly.

For anyone who ever loved a typewriter. Take a look at this recitation of the sounds of 62 different typewriters made between the 1890s and 1979, which I found over at Meanjin’s blog Spiked. Yes, that’s Michael Winslow performing the astonishing sound effects. It’s like listening to a time capsule. For his next trick, I wonder if he could reproduce the sounds of the diverse computer keyboards I’ve used in the past 20 years?

History of the typewriter recited by Michael Winslow from SansGil—Gil Cocker on Vimeo.

May I point you to the valuable online forum for women writers, She Writes. In just over one year, Kamy Wicoff has established a thriving community for women who write, with over 9,000 members from more than thirty countries.  Since joining I’ve found the live internet radio discussions most helpful – see the (partially obscured) widget on the left column for a list of recent episodes, available for instant download.

I’m not a natural joiner, so online communities are a habit I’m forcing myself to adopt, but She Writes is a rich source of information, services and advice for new and experienced writers. As I write this post – the first in way too long – I’m listening to a fascinating discussion with Francine Prose, celebrated novelist and non-fiction author of works including the helpful Reading Like a Writer. The She Writes community offers regular conversations such as these on topics relevant to writers, about publishing and editing, writing fiction and non-fiction, marketing and publicity, you get the idea.

The best comment I heard in the past hour is Prose on first drafts: “What you’re writing is a book you really want to read.” That makes so much sense.

It’s confirmed: NSW Premier Kristina Keneally will join Stephanie Dowrick at the Sydney Theatre on Saturday May 23rd at 10am to discuss the subject of Forgiveness, as part of this week’s Sydney Writers Festival. This event was “re-engineered” following Elizabeth Gilbert’s sudden cancellation of her SWF appearances, one of which was a conversation with Stephanie Dowrick. Imagine my surprise at being asked to moderate this new discussion. Excited and daunted, all at once. Four sessions now, and much preparation still to do … Please come! And don’t forget to bring your forgiveness with you …