The Going West Writers Weekend (subtitled 'Food for Thought') surpassed itself yet again this year with an extraordinary feast of literary talent, and many a quirk, drama and surprising moment as always. I missed a few sessions (they’re naturally ones that everyone raves about) including the launch of Iain Sharp’s new book Real Gold (AUP), which details the various magnificent special collections gifted to libraries around the country by 19th Century collectors. Iain himself, Philip Rainer from the Turnbull and the lovely Donald Kerr from the Otage University Library excelled themselves in describing treasures in glowing terms, to the salivating interest of the crowd…

Owen Marshall's was the first session I made it to on Saturday morning. He was talking about his new book Drybread (Penguin) with the lovely Graham Beattie, who is obviously a big fan of Owen, and whose dry enthusiasm is infectious (especially when applied to the thought of himself in the press box at the announcement of the Man Booker Prize, for which Lloyd Jones is now the favourite – to say that Graham is extremely pleased that he’s going to be there is somewhat of an understatment). Drybread is a real ghost town in Central Otago, and Owen sketched a delectable vignette about how he was driving with his mate Graham Sydney along dusty brown roads, when he saw a sign etched with the name he gave to his novel. He asked Graham to turn – all they found was a graveyard with a ring of trees around it but Owen knew he’d found his setting. Interestingly, Owen Marshall confessed he reads mostly biographies, as he learns most from them about how people actually work – he’s recently gleaned much info on people under pressure from various bios about military leaders. Top tip I should say.

Andrew Fagan next up reading, from his fourth book of poetry Overnight Downpour, some neatly written metaphors on life and love from a maritime angle – if only I had the book so I could quote some, as I liked them rather a lot. He rings a little bell each time he finishes a poem, which I think is quite a nifty idea – it lets people know he’s finished so they can clap, and continues the shipboard theme with the bell (they do bells don’t they, on boats? Dinner at eight bells, all that? Anyway, it seemed to fit). He made a slightly mad, piratical figure in his big black jumper (mandatory Westie) and black stocking cap. Could’ve had a bit of Jack Sparrow eyeliner, we girls thought. Arrrr.

Ursula Rani Sarma, the festival celebrity was up next. Miranda Harcourt interviewing. Blimey, what a couple of powerhouse chicks these two were. Miranda was positively terrifying - brisk, clever, intense - but it was water off a sleek duck’s back for unperturbed Ursula. She’s not yet 30, but this Irish-Indian playwright and poet is a seriously big name in Ireland, has a mind like a steel trap and is a major babe to boot. Hailing from Galway, Waitakere’s sister city in Ireland, she’s come into her fame early, having fallen into scriptwriting by accident and then having been in the right place at the right time so all the right people saw her ground-breaking play, ‘touched’. She’s been influenced by The Troubles in Ireland, and by her mixed heritage, and by the dark side of people; she’s fascinated by why and how people can do ‘really bad things’.

Miranda Harcourt confessed to having researched madly up the wrong track entirely, assuming this famous and brilliant young writer was a politically and ethnically motivated feminist, but Ursula's simply interested in ‘the individual journey’. Since she hurtled to fame with ‘touched’ in 1999 at the Edinburgh Festival she’s been commissioned by the likes of the BBC and the National Theatre in London to do all sorts of incredible things, the latest of which is the libretto for an opera. She’s very down-to-earth though, and was most appreciative of our beautiful, wild West Coast, which is much like her own in County Cork and which features in almost all of her work. A formidably talented woman and one whose work we may hopefully see here in NZ at some stage in the future (come on up Silo, Bats…?)

Graham Beattie had commented earlier that the thing he loves most about this festival is that there are no competing events, all the action happens in one spot, everyone eats together like a family and then goes back to the full immersion experience. So after a break for afternoon tea we all trooped back to our seats to hear David Larsen interview the witty, erudite and immensely likable Martin Edmond about his latest two books, Waimarino County and Luca Antara.

I unfortunately missed most of this session with two of my favourite literary types, as I was faffing about outside with Rachael King (The Sound of Butterflies) and Airini Beautrais (Secret Heart) whose session I was chairing next. We couldn’t decide if I should intro them both first, then they’d read, or introduce one then let that one read – but then the other one would be sitting there like a pillock for ages! Time ticked on as Paula Morris suggested to my horror that I should just relax and let it flow, and Rachael said she quite liked things to be ‘organic’. No, no! I nearly screamed. Airini merely smiled, young, fresh, quite formidably self-contained, and said ok to everything. I gibbered, ran about hither and yon looking for other people to discuss the order with (Murray Gray mostly, who was hell-bent on both of them reading for at least ten minutes – David Larsen said ‘You’re mad! Give them five, max, and think about knees if you get stressed’) then finally gave up and slouched resignedly into the last five minutes of the Edmond/Larsen session, making a racket and falling over my bag. It was immediately apparent that they had one of those magic rapport things going and that both of these outrageously bright blokes were in full and funny flight. Sigh.

However, my two guests were delightful, although it IS hard doing two, even if they are both extremely talented and gorgeous. The only things they had in common was both being first-book Montana winners and both being in bands – Airini plays violin in the Raskolnikovs and Rachael used to play bass with Cake Kitchen and Bressa Creeting Cake. All very cakey as I said, ridiculously. Ah well. Rachael – I quite forgot, after all that, to read out the lovely quote I scored from Bill Manhire about you, so I’ll put it in here: “Rachael was a generous member of the workshop – she was unpretentious and pragmatic, in ways that were useful to all of us. In her own work, she developed an impressive understanding of the larger architectural needs of fiction, and of the dynamics between characters. As a reader, she was particularly acute in her responses to other writers in the workshop. She made her comments on behalf of the projects they were working on, rather than from her own sense of what people ought to be writing. She also brought good food!” Says it all, really.

As for Airini, I said, and I meant it, that her delicious work reminds me of both photography, for it’s snapshot qualities, and cooking, for it’s reduction of a 'snapped' scene into a light but full-flavoured sauce that’s complemented by her carefully chosen words. She said she does remember scenes in a snapshot kind of way and then thinks about them, memorises them, until she can write it down. Then begins the crafting. I love these prose poems. They’re accessible but still mysterious and personal.

After that was over, and a glass of wine had been drained in a few seconds, it was off home, thus missing another rave-reviewed session, the launch of McCahon: The Titirangi Years (AUP), by fellow Going-West trustee Peter Simpson. Sorry Peter – but a mother of three can’t be all places at once, dammit. Believe me, I suffer for this, and for missing the first three sessions the next morning, but the one I started with sorted me out straight away… but I’ll leave you with this for now – a further missive later in the week.