CHRISTCHURCH WRITERS FESTIVAL

NOT ANOTHER BLOODY BLOG !

Three bloggers. ably chaired by sometime blogger, arts and books editor of the New Zealand Listener Guy Somerset, entertained us for an hour with their approach to blogging and their experiences along the way.

Leading them was heavyweight blogger Mark Sarvas, (pic left), founder of the famous and hugely popular The Elegant Variation which enjoys an amazing 7000-10,000 hits a day. To put this into perspective my own blog receives around a thousand hits on weekdays and fewer at weekends.

Sarvas talked engagingly about when he uses the royal "we" rathen than "I", the sense of responsibility he feels to post daily, (this I understand), and the reaction of visitors to his blog when he goes on leave and stops blogging, his use of guest bloggers, his practice of looking at and featuring books published several years ago that didn't get much attention at the time and when asked to recommend a book blog he admires came up with Sentences which is run by Wyatt Mason of Harpers magazine.

He also warmly recommended Netherland by Joseph O'Neill as a great read. It is, of course, one of the longlisted titles for the Man Booker Prize and I agree with Mark it is a great read.

Here is what I had to say about it on the blog on August 6:

Yesterday I read, and greatly admired, Netherland, (Fourth Estate) by Joseph O’Neill. This novel is a real knockout and for me had the additional appeal of being set in contemporary New York, a city I know and love.

The plot is very cleverly developed and the characterisation is hugely impressive with Hans van den Broeken a Dutch oil analyst and Chuck Ramkissoon a Trinidadian American being protagonists I shall long remember. The two meet while playing cricket and their developing friendship and shared experiences make up a large part of the story. The oil analyst is coping with the foundering of his marriage while the Trinidadian dreams of forming the New York Cricket Club to create a new cricket stadium on an old airfield with a view to hosting the Cricket World Cup.

Author O’Neill is an Irish barrister who lives in New York, this is his third novel, and it is a cracker.

Getting back to the story at hand, (sorry guys, I got a bit distracted there!), the other bloggers on the panel were NZ novelist Rachael King whose blog is called Sound of Butterflies and Donna Robertson who is part of the team of bloggers at the wonderful Christchurch City Library who did such a marvellous job covering the Festival, link here.

Donna recommended some of her favourite book blogs as Critical Mass and Papercuts while Rachael suggested one of her favourites, Emma Darwin , which is an especially good one for authors as it is more about writing than about books.

Being a blogger myself I of course greatly enjoyed this session hearing about the highs and lows of other bloggers and of course I found Mark Savas especially interesting as he is as close as we get to book blogger royalty.

Interestingly enough, and I was greatly flattered by this, the Chair of the session and a member of the audience both addressed questions to me!

Link here to read the Christchurch Public Library report on this event.