Kia ora koutou,
Just got back from the arts Festival in Nelson which includes art, theatre and books among other things (and should have included trees) – there are some beautiful trees in Nelson. When I got back home I thought of book festivals and all that they achieve.
Books and writers are part of it, the people who attend the sessions are part of it, those who organise this giant spider web of it all make a huge difference. Remember knitting fairisle? The intricate threads of wool that all have to come together to form a pattern? How we had to remember that even this little area of red mattered to the whole large picture of what we wanted to achieve? And how hard we tried to keep the wools untangled and how often we failed? They don’t fail at book festivals.
Think about it. Accomodation, transport, food (oh the cheese scones), people from bookshops – how do they get such wonderful people working in bookshops? – maybe its like librarians, maybe there’s a certain proportion of people who are born into this select group. They not only love books they do everything to make sure you love them too.
The sponsors generosity makes sure this all happens of course and these events wouldn’t happen without them but money cannot buy the kindness which make sure there’s a hand there when you need help down some steps. Or the smiles you get when you sit in the sunshine during breaks and strangers come up and talk about books or plays.
And there’s the people who MC each session. Think of the time they spend and the work they do, the seven eights of the iceberg of research and thought underneath the water, just one eighth above that shows up in the sessions they chair. Amazing. Again like fairisle, they keep all the threads operating so none get tangled – and one of those threads is the audience whose reaction/interest they have to honour as well as they do those threads on stage.
A lovely personal feature of this particular part of the Nelson Arts Festival was that I got to meet some other Renées – I can’t emphasise enough how much trouble I had with my name for about fifty or more years when I seemed to be the only one. I was often called Reeny or Brownie (Renée was too hard) and then when I decided to use just the one name for professional purposes the dark stuff really hit the fan.
Imagine how lovely and heartwarming it is for me to realise I’m part of a Renée network, some of whom I’ve now met. And of course to make it even better, if I meet another Renée at a festival that includes books and theatre then its an odd–on chance they’ll be publishers, writers and/or playwrights or in film, or all of these things. Maybe we should form a club? The Renée club? Or go upmarket and form the Renée Society? What do you reckon Renée Lang, Renée Liange and Renée Hollis? Kia ora koutou, you are now members of the Renée Society.
Maybe some brilliant festival organiser could organise a Renée panel session at their next festival? Just saying…
And let’s not forget the people who are there at the end of the day when all of us have gone home – the Cleaners. Yes, they deserve a capital letter on their collective name. I think all festivals (and parliament, big corporates, everything) would fall to pieces if Cleaners stopped cleaning. So kia ora to the Cleaners, three cheers darlings, and I hope you got a couple of cheese scones too (as well as the living wage).
Renée
