PENELOPE LIVELY-WORDS BY THE WATER

Sunday 07/03/2010. A beautiful Sunday afternoon walked down to The Theatre by the Lake to hear Penelope Lively talking about "Reading Writing and Letters Home" a sort of my life in books discussion of her approach to writing. Unfortunately Penelope is badly afflicted by back problems and her stature looks very fragile all the more impressive then when she spoke with a clear confident and distinctive voice. She covered a lot of the things that a new writer never anticipates as he/she sets out to complete a work, the travel, correspondence and a host of incidents including friendships made (and the advantages of writing in the English language). I "discovered" her as a result picking up her novel "Making It Up" from the recycled books desk at last year's festival. Making It Up follows a storyline exploring what might have happened had an alternative turn been taken at pivital moments of decision in her life, an interesting model which I thought of immediately at Melvyn Bragg's talk yesterday when he metioned his notion of writing a novel about a man who "goes off in three different directions and then unites at the end" It would allow for good fictive possibilities, so I must keep my eye on Melvyn to see if he gets round to it. A most enjoyable event and nice to know that I now know Penelope Lively, so been there done that and enjoyed it too.