Once Spring has clambered over the fence in Australia, writers from all over the country plot their journeys to Newcastle to taste the ginger beer and ardour at the National Young Writers’ Festival. This year, wordy youngsters wax Novocastrian from 1-5 October. I’m there right now, in fact, as are Anna Krien, Lawrence Leung and Lisa Dempster. Maybe one of them can lend me five bucks, I’m starving.

Anna Krien: another one of those people God put on the planet to give you a kick up the arse. Anna writes journalism, essays, fiction and poetry, and she has one of the best artist profile pictures I’ve ever seen. At least she is also very sweet. (Photo from here.)

Journalistic ethics: are people born with them, or do you have to slog away for years to figure them out?

I think you slog away at developing a sense of right and wrong from the day you’re born til the day you die. I imagine people on their deathbed have those ‘oops’ moments where they realise they got something wrong and their whole value system has to shift in their last 5 minutes… In journalism, ethics are trickier to navigate because reporters are often working against the clock and have intense deadlines, so they tend to be very callous with their subjects. Many stories written on the go like that end up using cliches, stereotypes and predictable points of conflict, because it’s an easy shortcut into a story. That said, there are also many amazing journalists who turn out an insightful story on a tight deadline. I am not one of those. I’m a ‘slow’ journalist for a few reasons: I don’t like rushing people, I like to develop trust and rapport with my subject and I don’t like making statements or claims without thoroughly investigating them first. Those are my ethical reasons – and the other side of that reality is I am just plain slow. It takes me a while to get my head around issues and systems and so on.

How does a person with a self-confessed ‘unremarkable brain’ nevertheless produce fine examples of journalism, essays, fiction and poetry?

Ha! How do I answer that? I suppose scientifically an unremarkable brain is a good thing and only a person of literature would be offended by such a diagnosis. Medical terms and literature are definitely at odds with one another. It took me forever to understand that a positive medical result is not always a good thing!

What would you say to your eleven-year-old aspiring writer self?

Don’t be so morbid! Stop cutting yourself up! Why are you obsessed with the holocaust? Stop scumming money at the school tuck-shop! Don’t steal the wine from the chapel – you’re going to GET CAUGHT! Stop lying! Oh – the things I would say if I could have a conversation with the 11-year old me. I was the most inconsistent little thing. Loud as a banshee, shy, buck teeth that looked like Scrabble pieces, and was horribly hungry, hence the lurking at the tuck-shop which in hindsight was because I grew 13 centimetres that year and my feet grew first, so I had these huge flapping feet. But if anything I would be hard pressed to even find my ‘writer self’ – I read and wrote lots but never considered it as something I could ‘be’. I wasn’t aspiring to be anything. It was just something I did. Same way some kids did art and others did science. Everyone had their own list of classes to wag and not to wag. To be honest, I think if I tried to speak to the eleven-year old me, she wouldn’t listen to me.

Lawrence Leung was fulfilling his childhood dreams on television screens across Australia earlier this year, and now he will be, um, fulfilling yours? Never mind. I know that’s impossible, because I’m not married to Jonathan Taylor Thomas. (Photo via.)

Hi Lawrence. I hear you’re appearing on the NYWF ‘Funny Business’ panel. So you think you’re pretty funny, do you?
You run a blog called 3000 BOOKS. So you think you can read, do you?

Oww, oh, you hurt me.
Comedy is extremely subjective. When people laugh, I’m a comic. When they don’t, I’m a spoken word performance artist. I will try my best on the NYWF panel to look like I know what I’m talking about, then skilfully handball the questions to the more talented Chaser writer Dominic Knight and satirist Courteney Hocking.

Has it occurred to you that maybe your parents are funnier than you are?
They write all my jokes.

Is it hard to gauge whether you’re being adequately hilarious when you’re filming, as opposed to performing in front of a crowd?
Yes, it’s very difficult. A live audience will give you immediate feedback, but a camera obviously cannot. On the other hand a camera won’t heckle or throw fruit at you. So, swings and roundabouts.

What are you working on at the moment?
Currently, I am doing a live show at the Brisbane Festival called Sucker.

Will you dance with me at the Great Gatsby party?
No one puts Baby in a corner.

Lisa Dempster is good value in every way, shape and form. A publisher, writer, blogger and now Wriron Chef, she’s sticking it to the artistic industries in the time-honoured independent tradition. Lisa also does a round-up of NYWF every year: 2007 and 2008. (Photo via.)

So, the National Young Writers’ Festival is going to be ‘Festival of Lisa: Part Newcastle’: not only are you launching your book, Neon Pilgrim, but you’re also appearing in four other events as well.

I know, with the events I’m in and those I want to see, I’ve got a pretty full dance card. The launch of Neon Pilgrim is obviously exciting, though I’m also nervous about my book finally being out there! But the Launch Pad concept is a fun one; I’m hoping to get to it on the other days too.

I’m looking forward to the panels I’m on – especially the two roundtables: Publishing how-to and Distro how-to. Roundtables are great when there’s a lot of interaction – I’m going into those sessions hoping to get some new ideas and inspiration. I’m also on a travel writing panel, Life in a Lonely Planet, with some interesting panellists (I’ll be taking notes!)

The event I’m most anticipating is Wriron Chef, which is a full Iron-Chef-Masterchef-style cook off between me and two other emerging food-minded writers, Benjamin Law and Rosie Pham. There’s so much scope for things to go vastly wrong, but I’m assured the event will be a ‘gleeful riot’ of foodie joy. Whatever happens I’m sure it will be entertaining. And the audience get to taste-test and judge us. Gulp.

Of course, the best thing about TINA is usually the stuff that is unscheduled and unprogrammed. Last year I went to a midnight zine launch, which was a highlight. I can’t wait for more stuff like that this year too… and generally just hanging out with friends and soaking up some rays.

Can vegans find good food in Newcastle?

Absolutely! Darby Street is Newcastle’s restaurant strip and vegos gravitate towards the health food cafe Natural Tucker for enormous and sustaining salads, pies, tempeh wraps and vegie burgers. The local Hare Krisna group set up each year outside the zine fair, serving cheap curry and rice, and Food Not Bombs often makes an appearance too.

I always find myself eating on the run during TINA – too much to do to stop and eat! – but this year I’m planning on uncovering some more of Newcastle’s vegan food. Pip from The Fairest Feed used to be a Novocastrian and has a few tips about where to eat and get good soy coffees on her blog. In particular, I’m hoping I don’t get too distracted to check out Goldberg’s, NOSH and Roladoor cafes.

This isn’t your first NYWF, is it? What was your first NYWF experience like?

This is my third trip. I was kind of nervous going up there the first time actually. I was launching The Sex Mook and I facilitating two panels. But it was awesome, The Sex Mook was really well-received and I had a fantastic time going to panels, drinking, doing mook launches, running a stall at the zine fair, lying in the park enjoying the sunshine, making out with someone I shouldn’t have… the usual TINA stuff. I was blown away by the people I met too – that first year, I made friends with Clementine Ford, Rhys McDonald, Christopher Currie and loads of other people who I really like and admire. TINA is good like that.