Auckland Writers Festival 2014: Sandi Toksvig's evening

"I find life funny."

"Life is funny."

"Funny things happen."

-- Sandi Toksvig

Once again, the Writers Festival teaches me not to judge people by their book covers. Or maybe even by their books! How many times, as we descended the stairs, the ASB Theatre being packed to the brim for this event, and through to the end of the Festival, did I hear people saying that they had not read Sandi Toksvig's books, and had not even now added them to their must-read lists, while at the same time expressing some variation on what session chair Sean Plunket quoted Festival Director Anne O'Brien as having said about Sandi Toksvig after having heard her at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, "She should rule the world!"

Sandi Toksvig? Who is Sandi Toksvig? Am I the only person who didn't know? Her name is Danish but she's the host of  The News Quiz on BBC, her books have chick lit-type covers and as with chick lit there are many, many of them, yet one of her latest is about the Boer War, hardly a chick lit preferred setting or era. Gleaned from the library shelves and the Writers Festival programme, that's about all I knew about Sandi Toksvig, up to when she bounced out on stage.

Well! There was a lot more. She grew up in New York where her dad was The Foreign Correspondent for Danish TV -- not having the budget to plant correspondents around the world, the intelligent Danes decided to plant just one, at the United Nations. During the course of this growing up, she got thrown out of three schools and "I was bored". But then, sent to boarding school in England, isolated by her differences, she found a bookstore and began reading. Hardy, Dickens, Austen.

And writing? "I'd always scribbled. My whole family writes. I just went into the family business. If my dad had been a butcher, I'd be selling you chops."

When she started her new show on BBC TV, the next day the comment from the organisers was "Good news. No complaints". She points out, "A 56-year-old man -- no one would have had any problems. A 56-year-old woman, they can't believe I'm still breathing".

Which brought her to one of my favourite lines of the evening, probably because I am a woman of a certain age myself. "What I like about women of a certain age is that they can't be bothered to dress things up anymore".

Why the Boer War as a setting for her novel Valentine Grey?

"The Boer war was interesting because 1) it was the first war Britain fought where the average soldier was literate, and 2) it was the end of the British Empire -- people were asking why their boys were dying, for what?"

Also, a lot was happening in terms of women's liberation at the time of the Boer War. Bicycles, for one thing. Women were working, as telephone operators, as typists. They needed to ride bicycles to work, and "you couldn't wear corsets and flounces on bicycles". The protagonist of Valentine Grey is an adventurous woman who changes places with a gay soldier and goes to fight in the war in a bicycling regiment.

Toksvig came out as a lesbian in 1984, the first lesbian in public life to come out, she says. She got death threats, and she and her then-partner having three children, had to get protection, go into hiding.  I choked up when she described her public event wedding (actually a renewal of civil partnership vows, for bureaucratic reasons), on the day same-sex marriage became legal in England and Wales. "I wanted it to be free, not by invitation. Two thousand people came, and when I came in on my daughter's arm they all stood up and cheered."

"What makes you outraged?" Sean Plunket asked.

"Girls in Nigeria. Casual racism. Casual homophobia. Fundamentalism, because it doesn't allow for the diversity of human thought."

"What does the future hold?" (slight editing by me who just doesn't like the term 'bucket list')

"Lose two more stone. Travel more. There's always things I'd like to learn. The most exciting is the thing you didn't expect."

The most exciting event I went to at the Auckland Writers Festival was "An evening with Sandi Toksvig".

My Sunday at the Writers Festival: female voices

Guest post by Ella, Readers Services, Central City Library

My morning began with a thought-provoking hour listening to a discussion between passionate, “radical womanists” Alice Walker and Selina Tusitala Marsh, followed by a talk by the brilliant New Zealand neuropsychologist Jenni Ogden. Already blown away by the strong female presence at this year’s Writers Festival I headed along to “Gender Divides”, a lively discussion of contemporary feminist and gender issues by a panel of fascinating women, led by the multitalented compare Judy McGregor.

Eleanor Catton

Celebrated New Zealand writers Eleanor Catton and Ngahuia Te Awekotuku gave a local and Māori perspective on gender issues, while American entrepreneur Jessica Jackley took things more global, discussing her work with small business owners (primarily women) in the poorer parts of the world. English broadcaster Sandi Toksvig rounded out the group and was a highlight of the event. As a comedian and regular panellist on BBC quiz shows such as QI and The News Quiz Show, Sandi seemed the most at home in the panel style format of the talk. Her humour shone and her “wit, wisdom and naughtiness” kept the crowd chuckling throughout the hour.

Despite all the humour and good cheer there were serious issues on the table. Judy McGregor asked the women whether they agreed with Germaine Greer’s statement that “it’s time to get angry again”. Sandi responded with a call to arms. It’s not enough to be angry, we need to be “enraged”. The talk took on a more serious tone as we were reminded of the dire situation for women in countries like Nigeria, as well as the ingrained sexism closer to home. Air New Zealand’s latest safety video was held up as a “particularly repellent” representation of women, as were some of the billboards on Auckland’s Karangahape Road.

Sandi Toksvig

The point was made that it is time to challenge the patriarchal structures of the culture we live in, rather than making it a simple question of men versus women. Each of the women interviewed has had to deal with her fair share of discrimination. Eleanor Catton has previously spoken out about older male reviewer’s reactions to The Luminaries and their attitudes towards women’s writing in general, and reiterated her point that in our culture there is a structural bias against female artists. These biases tend to exist across the board. Sandi Toksvig recounted similar experiences from within broadcasting; Jessica Jackley spoke about the difficulties for women to get funding for business ventures, due to the fact that most investors are middle aged, Caucasian males who tend to invest in those they can relate to. Ngahuia Te Awekotuku discussed gender equality in a marae context and issues surrounding this. She also brought gasps from the audience when she recounted the story of how racism had her expelled from Rotorua High School at age 12. 

Like much of the festival, the crowd was dominated by women; the group in the packed out ASB theatre was particularly vocal and responsive and the atmosphere was warm and welcoming. Judy McGregor closed the session by asking the women for the advice they would give to a twelve-year-old girl. Ngahuia Te Awekotu began, telling us “Never lose hope, always be hopeful.”. Eleanor Catton followed by asserting “You can do things you’ve never seen done before.” From Jessica Jackley came the advice, “There are very few rules that cannot be broken.”. Sandi Toksvig rounded things off with her two pieces of advice: “Being a grown up is better” and on further reflection “Look to the past and you will have the brightest future”.

My Sunday at the Writers Festival was a day filled with strong female voices that left me feeling inspired, energised and hopeful.

Auckland Writers Festival 2014: Eleanor Catton, Jessica Jackley, Ngahuia Te Awekotuku and Sandi Toksvig in "Gender Divides"

Guest post by Angela, Readers Services, Central City Library.

I settled in with the packed crowd at the ASB Theatre for what I was sure would be an entertaining and informative discussion on the gender divide and I definitely wasn’t disappointed. Dr Judy McGregor led the discussion with Man Booker Prize-winning author Eleanor Catton; broadcaster, comedian and writer Sandi Toksvig; former academic and author Ngahuia Te Awekotuku; and entrepreneur Jessica Jackley.

All of the panellists came to the topic from different perspectives. Jessica Jackley, a social fundraising entrepreneur, talked about the lack of access poorer women in the third world have to finance and loans and how micro-financing platforms can help them start small businesses. This wasn’t something I’d thought too much about, but she talked about how giving women the ability to earn money helps increase the prospects of children in poorer parts of the world and helps narrow the economic gender divide.

Ngahuia Te Awekotuku talked about traditional gender roles on the marae and how, on some marae, women don’t have speaking rights. She also lamented that Maori women are underrepresented in Maori academia. The women do most of the academic research but it is the men that get the jobs. Ngahuia and Judy laughed at the fact that they both had the distinction of being expelled from Rotorua Girls High, though Ngahuia’s recollections of the racism she experienced there from the teachers was horrifying and sad.

Eleanor Catton was asked to comment on the uproar her comments about male reviewers had caused. She clarified that it was more about the disparity in the number of male book reviewers to female and that books written by men are more likely to be reviewed by well-known publications than books written by women. She also discussed the extra pressure put on women to represent their gender as a whole, not just themselves.

Sandi Toksvig also talked about this pressure: you feel as a female comedian that you have to be funny, or otherwise people will say that women just aren’t funny. Another topic she discussed was the ageism experienced by women in the broadcasting industry; most of the female presenters on British television are young and women seem to be let go once they reach a certain age. Sandi was a delight, I remember seeing her on various British comedy shows when I lived in Britain and she’s just as funny as I remember. She brought a great levity to the discussion.

All-in-all it was a fun and inspiring talk. The panellists also discussed the female thinkers who inspired them, the pressure put on women about their appearance and the inherent biases in their respective fields. I found it thought-provoking and thoroughly enjoyable.

"They're wonderful in bed!" Previewing AWF 2014

The approach of Auckland Writers Festival 2014 has Booklovers in the City abuzz. Central City Library is running a Festival Preview series, featuring some of the city's more noted booklovers regaling audiences with their takes on the line-up. This guest post by Joanne Drayton, author of The search for Anne Perry and Ngaio Marsh: her life in crime, recapitulates the entertaining presentation with which she kicked off the series.


Dr. Joanne Drayton's "Full Story" on AWF 2014

Outside Bennetts Bookshop in Wellington, I read their thought for the week. The words of American historian Marilyn Young:

"If I ever get married, it will probably be to a book. I’m always falling in love with them and they’re wonderful in bed."

Joanne Drayton
(photo by Cass Power)

I was left pondering the awesome power of books. For they exist in two worlds: in the twilight of private life (in moments of quiet reading) and in the full blaze of public scrutiny (in press and magazine reviews). We read them as individuals, but also as part of the mob, with a “thumbs-up”, “thumbs-down” mentality. Reading books is essentially a private experience that plugs us into the public grid, connecting the individual to a greater matrix. So if we were to look for the source of their power, it is in their capacity to connect two worlds: the private and the public domain.

Books move us, they change us, they excite us in bed the way nothing else can (almost). In the ephemeral word of voice-mail and electronic messages, the published word speaks to us with a sense of permanence, in a coveted pact of isolation, at its best in a one-on-one relationship between writer and reader. Few other things rely on such intimacy: few other things touch us in such a personal way. But at the same time they have the power to shape our cultural memory; to assume the voice of ‘authority’ in the highly contested and contentious area of cultural activity, to tell our histories, to establish our iconic heroes – the famous and the infamous – to define our identities, and to tell us who we are.

The Auckland Writers Festival is a time when the private and public worlds of books collide. What a responsibility!

It is a banquet. A feast of Words, Ideas, People and Personalities – and someone’s just handed you a half sized dinner plate! You know, the ones always handed to ‘the women’ at family get-togethers and bar-b-ques.

So how do you make a choice when there's so much choice?

 I decided to work out what thrills me the most. A quick look through the programme and I had my answers…

MURDER
FEMINISM
CREATIVITY

Not necessarily in that order …

Camilla Lackberg

One
CAMILLA LACKBERG, SCANDINAVIAN CRIME QUEEN
43: Saturday May 17 2.30-3.30pm, ASB Theatre, Aotea Centre.

Why?

Because I’m fascinated by the whole crime phenomenon – why is it so popular, why has it infested popular television with almost the same degree of pestilence as cooking programmes? Why are people fascinated? Why does it grip all kinds of audiences from the Lords and landed gentry to the average and ordinary – like me?

Because I’m amazed by the virtuosity of the Norse … of the “Scandi-Noir pantheon”, as it says in the catalogue. Think of the greats that have come out of this part of the world – Stieg Larsson’s Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander, Henning Mankell’s Kurt Wallander. And now, a Scandinavian Crime Queen -- Camilla Lackberg, sometimes called the Swedish Agatha Christie.

Lackberg became a writer after her family enrolled her in a creative writing course as a Christmas present: "For me, actually, specific images – snapshots – come first, and then the story starts to come together from those bits and pieces. I am very visual when I write, I 'see' the story in pictures and writing a book is like having a movie running in my head 24/7." Imagine how harrowing that must be!

But this is what I find fascinating … what interests her most of all (and me too), is the psychology of it all: ‘Just how horrible people can be!’ And where does this come from? And why? Each time a great crime doyenne sits down to write a new book, they visit this fundamental question, which I think remains the greatest mystery of all!

(This is fiction, but if you want to explore the politics of these issues in history, I think Reza Aslan’s session "The Politics of the Prophets" looks absolutely fascinating, too… 63: Sunday May 18 11:30am - 12:30pm, ASB Theatre, Aotea Centre)



Two

GENDER DIVIDES 68: Sunday May 18, 1.00-2.00 pm, ASB Theatre, Aotea Centre

Why?

Well, here are the issues on the table for discussion:

• Gender 
• Politics
• Feminism
• Sexual violence

and

• Twerking!

Twerking (I learned with the help of Wikipedia) is a type of dancing in which an individual, usually a female, dances to popular music in a sexually provocative manner involving thrusting hip movements and a low squatting stance. Though the term seems to be of uncertain origin, common assumption suggest it is a contraction of “footwork” and a portmanteau of the words "twist" and "jerk". And just in case you didn’t know, the word was a runner-up in the Oxford Dictionaries "Word of the Year 2013".

While I can’t guarantee there will be a demonstration (perhaps with twerking on the table, this would have worked better as a workshop than a panel discussion), but this and more will be discussed by a stunning panel that includes:

Eleanor Catton

• Eleanor Catton, who has her own amazing session Our Booker Winner (53: Saturday 17 May, 5.30-6.30pm, ASB Theatre, Aotea Centre). Author of The Luminaries and Man Booker Prize winner for 2013.

• Jessica Jackley, an American businesswoman and entrepreneur. Jessica was the co-founder and CEO of ProFounder, a platform that provided tools for small business entrepreneurs in the USA to access start-up capital through crowd funding and community involvement. She is married to Reza Aslan (whose session I have already mentioned).

Ngahuia Te Awekotuku

• Dame Ngahuia Te Awekotuku, Professor of Research at the School of Māori and Pacific Development, at the University of Waikato – and such a good choice.

• Sandi Toksvig, who is a Danish/British writer and comedian who is a regular participant in QI and Whose Line Is It Anyway? And is chair of The News Quiz on the BBC’s Radio 4. Just 3 words: Funny, fascinating and smart!!

Three
EXPLORING THE CREATIVE PROCESS: WORKSHOP WITH MICHAEL LEUNIG
68: Sunday May 18, 1.00-2.00 pm, ASB Theatre, Aotea Centre

Michael Leunig: Self portrait

Why?

Because I love the combination of

• Cartoons
• Writing
• Painting
• Philosophy
• Poetry

And these are the qualities, the abilities, the special talents that Michael Leunig brings together in a workshop that is essentially about two things: Creativity and You. This is a workshop where you can discuss and explore the creative process with a practitioner who has shared and told stories in ways that we can learn from and learn about.


Whatever you put on your plate … make sure it sustains you imaginatively, creatively, and intellectually … because the choice is yours!

Joanne Drayton

Next AWF preview is 22 April, 5:30-6:30 pm, with Carole Beu, book  reviewer and owner of the Women's Bookshop, and Iain Sharp, writer, former Books editor at Metro Magazine and the Sunday Star Times, and Manuscripts Librarian at Auckland Libraries Sir George Grey Special Collections. Central City Library, 44-46 Lorne St. Free entrance.