IFOA

Recovered from International Festival of Authors...as always fantastic. We at TRS have been frequent flyers at IFOA since its inception in the days of Greg Gatenby, the founder. Thus, we notice subtle changes to formats and offerings. We are not sure we like 5 or 6 authors set into one reading event that lasts 2 hours. It also provides individual attendees scheduling problems and missed readings. While there are more authors, there is less choice yet your exposure is increased. A wash, a toss-up! We imagine this is a budgetary decision as fewer rooms need to be used. Gatenby, while always controversial, was quite correct when he said "The mind cannot absorb more than the bum can endure." Five authors is too many. Four is a push, three is comfortable. We take notes at the readings and the round tables but the readings are becoming too much of a blurrrrrrrrrr. We can't keep track of who wrote what (and argue about it afterwards while scrambling for our programmes.) Eschewing the organizing principal of 'themes' (boring but they do bring unity to a reading and are a temptation to which TRS has fallen) IFOA did a 'mash up' approach putting urban lit with historic fiction. Juxtapositioning was interesting at first but then felt too incongruous and a little jarring.

The round tables (discussions) were all fantastic with great moderators. The moderators were enthusiastic, well informed, well read but needed more coaching on how to balance each writer's contribution. A few were dominated by the loudest/funniest voice. While this can be entertaining, it is difficult to watch 'quieter' less effusive authors shrink into the shadows.

Speaking of shadows: TRS is a reading series that is small and intimate. The readers can see the authors and the authors can see the readers!

Talk soon.