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What I am Most Looking Forward to- Gail Jones ‘The Art of Writing’


Though there will be a variety of authors attending this year’s Writers Festival in Mildura who will all bring something new and fascinating to our arts education, for me personally I have felt drawn in with mysterious fascination by the Australian writer Gail Jones, whose collections of work have peaked my curiosity into what kind of insight she will provide in her talk ‘The Art of Writing’, alongside Helen Garner with Michael Meehan.

At first when I begun to research the festival program and the people who would be holding the sessions, Jones seemed to be someone who stood out to me the most for honestly no particular reason. It was after looking into her articles of work and coming across her novel A Guide to Berlin (2015) that I began to grow interested in her as an author.  
Mildura Writers Festival guest author: Gail Jones

At first I thought the novel was simply just what it says in its title; that it was a tour guide for Berlin; but in actual fact it is a novel that revolves around international travellers from all around the world, who meet in Berlin and share their individual stories, with an unexpected act of violence changing everyone’s lives. As I absolutely adore reading mystery novels as well as adventurous ones, the premise of her novel intrigued me and drove me to continue my research yet I was stumped almost immediately, as all I could really find was her Penguin Books biography.

Though I have only just purchased a copy of A Guide to Berlin, I look forward to hearing Jones speak at the festival, and hopefully getting the chance to ask her how she managed to create the premise of such a thrilling novel, raising questions as to what kind of research and thought process that would go into creating this type of story. It is endearing for me personally as I feel as though I have someone whom I can look up to and know that success is possible for Australian female writers.

I wish to finish A Guide to Berlin by the end of the festival and post a review of the novel online, hopefully being able to add some comments that will come out of Gail Jones session as well. 
Edited by Sue Gillett
Originally uploaded to the official WIA blog 10 July 2017 


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