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People with fire in their bellys and commitment

MPS is presently attending the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival 2010. The Festival offers up a wonderful cornucopia of writers from 27 countries discussing, debating and reflecting on all manner of things.

This morning Meanjin presented "Writers Speaking Out". How wonderful to hear Christos Tsiolkis, Sian Prior, Omar Musa and Antony Loewenstein in discussion, and so passionately - a rare commodity in 2010 - with the editor of Meanjin, Sophie Cunningham. The program was filmed by Australia's ABC and will be on air in the next weeks. Watch this space for advice on when to view the program.

What came through at the discussion was how committed each person was to resisting the inevitable brickbats [from death threats down] and stand for whatever cause they have taken up. A highlight? Omar Musa doing a truly moving rap on the plight of the boat people coming to Australia and how shamefully the Government has acted in relation to them. Omar advises that this truly wonderful rap will appear on his CD to be released shortly. Again watch this space for info on the release.

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