Newcastle Young Writers Festival 2009

After Sydney, we headed up to Newcastle for four days - a two hour train ride north of Sydney. We'd been planning to attend the Young Writers Festival for quite some time. Chris spoke on a few panels (including "So I Married a Struggling Artist" which was about having a relationship with another creative person. Lawrence Leung was even in the audience!) and did a workshop on the last day. Outside of these events we went to lots of panels, exhibitions etc and to the Zine Fair on Sunday where we had heaps of fun selling comics and toys. We also stayed with our very generous friends Adam and Kimberley on our last two nights (note the view from our fancy hotel on the first two nights). All in all, it was a busy, cold, wet but nonetheless fun trip to Newcastle. We got to know some really cool people and that was by far the best part of it :)


Hello Newcastle! The view from our "executive" apartment hotel. Needless to say we did not like this hotel. It was clean and all that, just too "executive" if you know what I mean. No soul to the place. Newcastle however, was not as bad as this picture! It is an industrial town but it's slowly getting there. It has some lovely buildings and great initiatives like Renew Newcastle happening.


Hello Zine Fair! This was a super event. Chris sold over 40 comics and I sold all my Babushkas :D At least 1000 or so people came through the multi-level carpark the Fair was in. This is the event we came for.


Our stall.


A more favourable view of Newcastle from our stall.


Our stuff! Note the lovely Teal coloured comic (top centre) printed on the amazing Rizzeria printer.


Leigh Rigozzi had a stall next to us.


The super talented Pat Grant and Chris.


David Blumenstein!


Chris doing his workshop on creating a comics likeness (at Staple Manor).


The fabulous Rizzeria printer. We loooooved this machine.


Zine exhibition at Staple Manor.


Pat Grant's work.


Chris's poster with missing zine (a good sign I think!).


Indian lunch on the last day of the festival. Right after this we headed back to Sydney on the train. Lovely peoples here (clockwise from right) - Pat Grant, Patrick Alexander, Chris, Ben Hutchings and Rebecca Clements (with the little hat on).


Sydney street right off Oxford Street. I took this for the Jacaranda trees and their purple blossoms. I'm thinking about getting a tattoo of this type of tree as it played heavily in my childhood.


A huuuuge doll in the window of a shop in Surry Hills (right near Route 66).


A fan waiting for the bus.


Jump horsey, jump!

And there you have it, that was our trip away! Now it's time to plan for a quick jaunt to Melbourne in December to attend the opening of Tango, a new anthology of Australian comics. Fingers crossed we'll get to see Jarvis Cocker while we're there.