I’m being really festival greedy this year… You’ll find me running (if you care to look, and you should – my run is good for a laugh) between events trying to cram as much festival goodness in as I can before the week ends. However, the absolute standout – the event that I am most excited to see this year – is Geoff Dyer Could Say Anything.

A friend introduced me to both Dyer’s book on D. H. Lawrence, Out of Sheer Rage, and Tarkovsky’s film Stalker (the subject of Dyer’s latest book Zona) just before I jetted off on a recent overseas trip. I subsequently became smitten with Dyer’s writing and intrigued by Stalker and managed to see Dyer leading a panel discussion of Stalker in an absolutely packed auditorium at New York’s New School.

It doesn’t really matter what he talks about – anyone familiar with his writing knows that this talk will be both fascinating and funny. I may not be in New York anymore (sniff) but at least Geoff Dyer isn’t either.

Portia Lindsay

Program Officer

Geoff Dyer (Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi, Paris Trance and many wonderful other books) is renowned for his discursive approach to an almost impossibly wide range of subjects. In his latest, Zona: A Book about a Film about a Journey to a Room, he explores the mysteries of a film that has haunted him ever since he saw it thirty years ago: Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker, which is widely regarded as one of the greatest cinematic works of all time. (“Every single frame,” declared Cate Blanchett, “is burned into my retina.”) In this very special event, Geoff Dyer talks about the many literary and other byways he is compelled to wander down. And other things. Who knows what he will say?

At this year’s Sydney Writers’ Festival the NSW Writers’ Centre presents The Forest for the Trees – Writers & Publishing in 2012  (SOLD OUT): A one-day writers seminar looking at the publishing world right now.

The Forest for the Trees will provide emerging writers with an introduction to getting published as well as engaging writers of any level with discussion and debate on where the writer world is in 2012.

Over a packed day this seminar will go from lectures to conversations to panel sessions (and back again). The Forest for the Trees will look at the last year for publishers, bookshops, and for the writer. The here and now of digital and alternative publishing will be discussed as will a snap shot of the challenges that publishers are facing. Journal editors will discuss where they are at, as well authors discussing the challenges of getting a book to print and the difference with the overseas writing world. The day will end with a look ahead from a writer, publisher, agent, and bookseller as well as an open question and answer session.