Lost Opportunity at The Lost Father

I took a day off yesterday to go and listen a few talks and swan about at the Sydney Writer's Festival. I was too knackered, or not in the mood, for writing anything about it last night, but I will over the weekend.

One of the talks I wanted to attend I missed however, and I was sooo disappointed. It was from the Biography and Memoir program and called The Lost Father, featuring a panel of three writers talking about the power of fathers over us long after they've gone. I had a half hour break so I browsed the book shop for a few minutes, went to the bathroom and then joined the queue with at least 15 mins to spare - and I didn't get in! (and was then kicking myself for taking my time). The line went half way down the pier. Who would've thought? One lady in the line told me that a lot of other events at that time were ticketed and this one was free so that's probably why there were a lot of people. That slightly annoyed me because then I felt like the line was possibly full of people who weren't very interested, they were just killing time, whereas I really wanted to hear it ... but who knows. The memoirs that each of the featured authors have written, all of which were only published this year, have now snagged my attention. They are Our Father Who Wasn’t There by David Carlin, Popeye Never Told You by Rodney Hall and This Party’s Got To Stop by Rupert Thomson (incase that link above disappears).

The interesting thing to me is that the one time I tried to write something like memoir, and took it along to a writing masterclass, it actually was about my father (though the intention was that that was to be just the beginning), so I was curious as to whether this was a common prompt amongst memoir writers and what these particular memoirists thought the influence of fathers was. Hopefully it was recorded and I can listen to it some other time.