the view from the edge

[adelaidesean]

On Friday (the 13th), I gave the keynote address at the opening of the Salisbury Writers' Festival. The text of my speech is accessible via the opinions section of my web site. The topic was "White Hot Passion: Living & Writing on the Edge", taking the festival's themes (murder and romance) and location (a satellite city of Adelaide) as inspiration. I chose the topic but then found it surprisingly difficult to write to. Seemed to go down well, though. Whew.

The joke at the end is an oldie but a goodie, and I'm certain it wasn't originally written for Jeff Kennett. Jokes are passed down from generation to generation like re-enactments in crappy current affairs shows: only the names have been changed. I wonder who the original megalomaniac was? We may never know.

Comments

[gumnut.livejournal.com]

Okay, I'm giggling and grinning, that joke may be old, but I've never heard it, so it hit the mark :D

As for your speech...the first word that comes to mind is 'Wow'. Quickly followed by 'Damn, I should've gone'.

You write of passion and manage to embody it in your words. This is where I sound ludicrously gushy, but honestly the whole way through reading it, I was inspired, wanting to write down ideas that led off yours. Heh, I grew up 5 miles out of the CBD and I was sitting here tossing around vague concepts about growing up just a little off centre :D

Though I am glad you decided to follow your passions early on. As I'm sure a lot of people do, I'm looking back nowadays wondering what might have happened if I'd followed the paintbrush or pen instead of the chequebook.

I ran into a member of my writing group today and she said she really enjoyed your presentation. Mentioned that she spoke to you and was really impressed. I had planned to go, but as with many things, necessity ate the desirable.

Anyway, thanks for putting your speech up online for us negligent but interested peoples.

Nutty
(off the edge, but learning to fly)

[ladnews.livejournal.com]

Thanks, Nutty. I am blushing.