One: on airbrushing
"Most people think that we retouch models to make them look thinner. In reality we hide jutting collar bones. We retouch models to make them look bigger, to fill them in," said Kirstie Clements reflecting on her time as editor of Australian Vogue.
Two: on digital thinking
Eli Horowitz, who has written a novel for iPad and iPhone had a humorous take on fears about the digital age: "A really good thought experiment is [to] think about moving from an internet age into a books-only age – 'What, so when you open a book you're locked into it for 400 pages? What will that do to our children's minds?'"
Three: on pseudonyms
James Wood, now a literary critic for publications such as the New Yorker and the Guardian, in his early career published round-up reviews of paperback novels under the pseudonyms Douglas Graham and, inspired by a Henry James short story, Neil Paraday.
Four: on adultery
The Earl of Sandwich – famous for creating the lunchtime snack – was also a notorious rake and adulterer and one of the first to espouse a division between private conduct and public personae, a very modern division that Faramerz Dabhoiwala author of The Origins of Sex argues originated in the 18th Century.
Five: on euphemisms
Asked about the sorts of euphemisms reviewers use to disguise their negative thoughts on books, James Ley from The Sydney Review of Books said "'Interesting' is a usefully neutral term." While Sydney Morning Herald literary editor Susan Wyndham described "ambitious" as helpful: "You don't necessarily have to say whether the work achieved those ambitions or not."
Six: on soundbites
"The speed of the interaction and the relentlessness of the media and the 24 hour news cycle has meant that politicians now use language to protect themselves rather than to reveal." Annabel Crabb on the reduction of political language to the soundbite.
Seven: on family
Karl Ove Knausgaard spoke of the way his autobiographical novel A Death In The Family was incredibly difficult and hurtful to his family. "To write it, I am saying my book is more important than your life. That's the ethical dilemma I had. But I turned the questions around. Who are you to stop me telling the story of my life and my father?"
Eight: on language
"You don't protect language by putting it in a cage like at the zoo. It will die in that cage. The way to protect language is to give it the means to exist outside the cage. By using it." Diego Marani on whether the misuse of language by internet or text speak is ruining language.
Nine: on cliffhangers
In a panel on Reading In The E-Future, digital publisher Stuart Buchanan noted the way in which Amazon models that give you the first two thousand words to download for free have affected the way writers are composing novels, with authors writing their cliffhangers to end at precisely that two thousand word point.
Ten: on reviewing
James Wood described literary reviewing – distinct from music, food or art criticism – as unique in that: "You get to write the review in the same medium as the work you're reviewing. The proximity in form lends a slight electricity."
(Eleven: on rain)
Sydney doesn't do rain well. Know that you will not be able to buy an umbrella at the festival, anywhere, ever.
