The Two Fires Festival is a celebration of poet and activist Judith Wright’s impressive double legacy, and an opportunity to explore the ongoing relevance of that legacy in today’s world. It aims to stoke the two fires of arts & activism. This year’s festival will be taking up the challenge of Coming Together.

Coming together with me on our Small Publishers’ Panel were Stephen Mathew of Ginninderra Press, Rob Riel of Picaro Press and Wagtail Books, and Alice Gage of Ampersand Magazine.  We were wrangled by Phil Day of Finlay Lloyd Press.

Account written the day after:

Speaking on the panel was fun. Phil took his wrangling seriously, and even though armed with a formidable list of intelligent questions, allowed himself to sacrifice some of them and let us ramble on — and then pulled us back to the Important Issues. It was a good mix of panelists.

As I said on my personal blog, I felt a bit like I was in one of those Sesame Street clips that sing one of these things is not like the others. All the others were digital or off-set print publishers, fraught with commercial pressures, hell-bent upon getting new writing out there, everywhere, in an attractive and affordable manner. I, on the other hand, put out small editions, hand-crafted, with a vague eye to making money (something I have to address very soon) but focusing more on the object than the accessibility. However, the more we talked, the more we had in common. For example, Rob Riel has a similar interest to mine, of looking at Australia’s poetic history, and rifling through the dross to find gems to republish. He now has a series of poetry reprints called Art Box, reproducing what he considers to be good out-of-print volumes. Is he creating a canon? I hope so, to some extent. I don’t think Australia has one for poetry apart from Lawson-Paterson-Gilmore-insert names here-big gap-Wright-Murray

We talked a wee bit about design, a lot about accessibility, more about the Future of The Book (we didn’t really get anywhere on that point, of course: the oral poets, who insisted that here is now and we don’t need to put stuff on paper ended up selling books of their work later in the day), had some healthy interjections and questions from the audience, and I got to poke Phil with a stick a little bit, a beloved hobby of mine for years now because he takes it so well (we used to go to art school at the same time).

I also got to spend some time in the Braidwood Book and Print Room, a not-to-be-missed experience for anyone who loves eclectic books, fab prints and works on paper, and a gorgeous setting. This is a bookshop that doesn’t care that it lives in a small country town; it has a distinctly European sensibility and doesn’t stock anything you’d expect to find. It’s very easy to find: as you’re travelling through the Braidwood town centre on the way to the coast/Batemans Bay, you turn left onto the highway, and not far along on your right is a blue house and a sign saying ‘bookshop’. You are there. Please do go there, even if only via the website. [POSTSCRIPT = no longer there, sadly. Another good idea bites the dust...]