Ruby nest and Writers Week

It’s that time of year again! Writers Week is on again, summer is drawing to a close, and the Festival has opened here in Adelaide. I went to Writers Week yesterday – it was a beautiful day, and it was mostly as if the past covid-riven year hadn’t happened. We had to ‘check in’ on entry, and there was a fence around the area to ensure that folk came through the gates and did check in, but apart from that, it was as if the past 12 months haven’t happened. We are so lucky (and here’s hoping it lasts!). It was a treat to be there, swanning around under the trees, seeing friends and folk I run into once a year at WW, listening to writers talking about their books and lives. My highlights were a terrific talk by Durkhanai Ayubi, a local writer and daughter of the family who run Parwana, the well loved restaurant of the same name. She has written a memoir/recipe book – also called Parwana (the recipes are from her mother – and include some that are the foundation of the restaurant’s trade). I also heard Trent Dalton at the end of the day. He is a great enthusiast, full of the joys, and totally not ‘cool’ with it. Excellent! Daggy! Totally un-cynical! (And his writing is terrific I think too.)

Earlier in the week I went to see Pam (who has featured here and here before). She has a small grandchild and has written him the sweetest poem/story about a bird’s nest she found. It (the nest) is most mysterious, stained bright red inside with maybe mulberry juice. How was it made? Did the bird deliberately colour it? Or did the mother feed the babies with mulberries and they perhaps got the juice all over everything? How did it end up on the ground, to be found by Pam?

The ruby nest (Pam tells me the colour has faded quite a bit since she first found it but it still looks pretty ravishing to me!)

There’s not much connection between these things – WW, Pam’s poem and the nest – except perhaps that creation, whether of books or nests, poems or festivals (or anything else), is a wonderful and mysterious process. With unexpected side benefits – including that technicolour cradle, and heartfelt discussions in the Pioneer Women’s Garden in Adelaide, sun shining through the trees, birds flitting and chirping,