So Sydney eh? It’s been nearly three months and the sensory twitches that twang those twenty-something memories are starting to fade into normality now. Sydney’s distinctive smell – creamy whiffs of frangipani with low note of salt water is our daily background perfume; the strangled-cat howls of the crows, hysterical kookaburras and lurid rosella splashes aren’t making us stop and stare into the trees any more … crikey, even the accent is smoothing out to our ears and the kids have stopped giggling when they overhear someone saying ‘ben’ instead of ‘bin’.

The babysitters have been sought and found, the children are happily ensconsed at school, and we can start to kick back and take advantage of the considerable cultural advantages of the Big Smoke. Last weekend, for example, could have no other overall theme than glamour. Friday night saw the languid intellectual chic of New York husband and wife Paul Auster and Siri Hustvedt on stage with likeable Sydney literary persona Ed Wright. The venue was the Sydney Theatre in Walsh Bay and the Harbour Bridge loomed over us as we scoffed our scallops afterwards in a sleek glass cube on the wharf, a spectacular lightning storm regularly floodlighting the view. Then, after a cruisy Saturday involving the Sydney Morning Herald, several gorgeous beaches and bays filled with multi-million dollar yachts, we nipped into town again to bask in the presence of Ian McEwen at the Opera House. And stepped out into the afternoon sun to the supersonic boom of superboats racing in the harbour – ten times forty phallic feet of glossy, supercharged power sending white tails of spray the same distance into the air, with the serene curves of (in Mr McEwen’s words) the most famous building in the world soaring behind us.

It’s all a bit overwhelming for a country mouse from west Auckland. But I think I could learn to like it, and for a couple of years at least will have to live with the continual background heartache of missing family and friends. And luckily, a regular salve of ditch-crossing can and will be applied.

Politically, it’s a good time to be here. The new government seems to have unleashed a fresh energy on what was already a fizzing city and hey – how was that apology? I had just finished reading, shamefully late, Kate Grenville’s The Secret River and was still reeling with horrified sorrow. I listened, with other hushed mothers in the school library that rainy morning, to Kevin Rudd unflinchingly detailing the past atrocities visited by the Australian Government on Aboriginal familie just decades ago, and realised that it was seriously huge. Every local council had set up huge outdoor screens all over the country for people to come and witness it live, together. I think it was the best speech I’ve ever heard a polititan give - it left no stone unturned and no possible room for justification. And he stayed away from the temptations of wallowing in apologetic matyrdom by putting up a practical, no-bullshit challenge to the opposition to pull together to right wrongs that are happening now in health, education and social justice. It was a carbuncle that had to be lanced and the relief was immediate.

But back to the books and the writers. I’m not going to attempt to ‘do’ NZ from here. I’ll hopefully delegate the odd blog and just put up an occasional one from here with no promises of regularity. There’s plenty happening in the Australian lit scene of course – and Sydney Writers Festival is coming up! Last weekend was just a taster…

So: Friday night in Sydney city, a packed-to-capacity theatre, Paul Auster and Siri Hustvedt stroll elegantly on stage in their matching sleek black clothes to thunderous applause. I feel a little star-struck as always in the presence of great writers.

One of Paul’s statements which caught my attention early on was in response to a question posed to Siri: as her books were mostly about wounded people, did she think an author needed to have an unhappy background to be able to write convincingly in this area? She herself had a very happy childhood, although plagued with ‘nerves’ but she made the observation that within happy families children can be wounded for no particular reason and feel themselves ‘apart’. Paul then said that in his opinion, all artists are wounded and, if they aren’t, he believes there would be no need within them to create art. Hmm ... I thought that needed to be thrown open to LeafSalon’s arty readers immediately.

They both talked of the process of writing, of entering the minds of their characters and being taken over ‘as if in a trance – it’s befuddling’, said Paul. For those of you who have read Siri’s What I Loved and remember with horror the ‘deeply traumatic event’ which happens in it, get this: she insisted this was sprung on her – she simply, truthfully did not know it was going to happen until she was writing it, which I found fascinating.

Both have deep interests in neuropsychology, especially Siri, who is part of a study group looking into how memory and imagination work together. Apparently if your hippocampus, the part of the brain which is associated with memory, is damaged by accident or disease, you are unable to read fiction as the imagination and memory are physiologically inextricably linked. Paul said his visual imagination was in fact very bad – some readers will vividly ‘see’ a place which is described even vaguely, but he knew that his was bad when he read Pride and Prejudice in his early twenties and realised at the end that in his mind the whole book had taken place in his parents' front room.

They both love Kafka, citing him as a huge influence in their writing. Siri in fact taught him for a while when doing her masters degree but stopped when she realized that ‘there was simply nothing to say about his work’. It was all so utterly perfect, she said that it created a kind of vacuum within her classes – Paul said yes, that Kafka was ‘beyond exigesis’ which I’m afraid I had to look up. Must go back and read some more of him; my Russian period was most intense around the 19-20 year old mark and I’m sure as hell a different reader now.

Siri finished on a question from the audience about how both of their work often creates the feeling that there is a kind of mysterious parallel world just a hairsbreadth away and after thinking carefully she responded, with disarming earnestness that she ‘deeply believes that everyday life is imbued with mysteries of the highest metaphysical order.’

I had forgotten to take anything to write on, so was scribbling in the dark on our two tickets which has proved to be somewhat unhelpful. I also spent no small amount of time becoming involved in reveries about their home life, especially after Siri said that she had given the film rights for one of her books to ‘an old friend of the family – Wim Wenders’. Can you imagine the parties they must go to, and presumably throw? And they seemed so joined at the hip – finishing each others’ sentences, tapping each others’ arms archly, saying how they loved how the other phrased some particular thing in whatever book – if they hadn't been together for 27 years I'd have said they were flirting. New York’s first literary couple were gorgeous, warm and eloquent – I decided to label them with the phrase ‘cosy glam’.

As for Ian McEwen… but this posting has gone on too long, and I did remember to take something to write on this time. Y’all come back now, y’hear.

PS: Paul Auster has written the screenplay for a movie which will be coming to a screen near you soon:The Secret Life of Martin Frost. Check out the trailer here, and while you're at it, have a look at the Austers here. Don't forget wild child daughter, Sophie. OK, I'm a little obsessed, all right?

PPS: Will be waiting with bated breath for the results of this years $65K Prize in Modern Letters. So many people deserve this one... the shortlist, to refresh your memory before the announcement on Saturday night in Wellington, is Michele Amas, David Beach, Mary McCallum, Jo Randerson, Anna Sanderson and Louise Wareham Leonard. Now there's some glamour for ya.