Six years ago, if I’d been told that I would run a successful Festival about writing, with a teeny tiny sub-committee of people, I wouldn’t have believed you. But here we are, 2019, and Adelaide Plains Poets, the writing group I’m the President of, has just finished putting on our 5th Festival of Words.
This event, on the theme of Location, took place mostly in Gawler, with one event happening in Mallala, and a train trip from Gawler to Adelaide and back. There were workshops, various people speaking, a visit to an art gallery, a yarning circle, and an exhibition of photographs, with the photographers speaking about their images.
Some of these events have been the same from the beginning, some are new. The main program remains the same as the first Festival, but there have been changes, to fit better, have a better venue, enable more people to be involved in all of the events – all improvements.
And so with Five Festivals successfully run, all financially viable and fun for an increasing range of writers of various genres, and writing experience, we can proudly say, yes we’ve done that. But now is not the time to rest on our laurels. Just because we’ve done it five years in a row, definitely doesn’t mean we don’t have to do it again!
We enjoyed ourselves so much more this time, the sub-committee, and we’re keen to get the planning started for the next Festival. I have many ideas for the Festival next year, and I hope I can get the other people involved keen to look at my ideas, and make them happen!
Puss in Boots enjoyed going on the train ride again this year! He may not have written any poetry of his own, but he enjoyed hearing it being read out, as we travelled on the way back to Gawler from Adelaide!
I’ve thinking about words in many ways, from books, to people speaking and to people writing new words. But we’ve always had these things, I want to see words being done in new ways, in different places, and with more and different people too. Bring a diverse mix into the Festival for 2020 will be my plan for the coming year …
Carolyn Cordon - Creative 