Schmooze Review: Text Publishing Melbourne Writers’ Festival Party

We had terrible trouble trying to get a decent photo, but at least this pic turned out better than Jeff Sparrow's.

Text Publishing Melbourne Writers’ Festival Party
Blue Diamond, Melbourne
Thursday 20 August, 2009

The Enthusiast‘s night out at this publishing industry event began with a single tweet. When people ask us in future what the point of Twitter is, we can say, “Reminding us that totally awesome schmoozefests are kicking off 40 minutes from now!”

Assured that despite the instructions on the invitation, RSVPing was not essential, we felt relieved as the Blue Diamond doorman on the ground floor waved us in. Fifteen floors up, however, the lift doors opened onto a dismaying sight: a table where Text Publishing employees were checking a list!

Fortunately for this Schmooze Review, right at that very moment Penny Modra from ThreeThousand was saying to the list guy, “Is Mel Campbell here yet?”

The Blue Diamond is a womblike yet cavernous space with stupendous CBD views on two sides, club lounge chairs, a coat-check room (it was strictly CYO tonight), a parquet dance floor and a long balcony for smokers. The overall impression is of a corporate cocktail bar. It was an ideal venue for this kind of intimate schmoozefest. Indeed, just the previous evening it had hosted the 20th birthday celebrations of The Sunday Age, which had apparently served the same food.

It was pretty nice food. Platters of fried objects included samosas, mini spring rolls and, puzzlingly, loose heaps of french fries, but I chose the arancini balls out of nostalgia for the good old Readings days. They were pretty good. There were also cheese platters.

Then came the meat. This event has the distinction of being the most carnivorous schmoozefest The Enthusiast has so far attended. Perhaps in a metaphorical display of the publishing industry’s primal savagery, Blue Diamond staff threaded their way through the crowd with plate after plate of lamb meatballs, lamb skewers, chicken skewers and other meats that I declined as I’d eaten enough meat already. There were also chilli prawns, which were much appreciated. God knows what vegetarians were meant to eat.

In the official part of the proceedings, Text’s Michael Heyward welcomed everyone to the event and vented his spleen about “the fucking Productivity Commission”, then Julianne Schultz took the stage to launch issue 25 of the Griffith Review, “After The Crisis”, which is the first issue of the journal to be distributed by Text. Given the issue’s long lead time, Schultz joked that it now seems serendipitously current, given recent headlines claiming the global financial crisis may be over.

We’re used to feeling on the outer at industry events, but The Enthusiast was surprised how many people we recognised at the Text party: “multi-award-winning” Chloe Hooper; controversially ex-Monthly editor Sally Warhaft; The Age‘s books editor Jason Steger; and… was that Kerry Greenwood wishing me luck carrying multiple glasses of champers back from the bar?

Better yet, realising the number of people I actually knew gave me a powerful feeling of metamorphosing into a Publishing Industry Insider (a simultaneous Gangland and Blink-182 moment). Then I realised I was probably just tipsy.

Among The Enthusiast‘s acquaintances at the party was David Winter, who made headlines earlier this year when he quit the deputy editorship of The Monthly. Winter now works at Text, largely on the Griffith Review. The lovely folk at Arcade Publications were charming as ever, however Simon Caterson, author of their forthcoming Hoax Nation, probably thinks I am a complete goon. I also chatted with Meanjin‘s Sophie Cunningham (who appeared to have access to another, secret bar tab) and Overland‘s Jeff Sparrow and Kalinda Ashton, both of whom have new books out (Sparrow’s Killing: Misadventures In Violence and Ashton’s The Danger Game).

Unclear what was included in the bar tab, The Enthusiast stuck to sparkling wine (except for a detour into sparkling rosé that thrilled and intrigued my companions). The tab ended precisely at 8:30pm, which had been advertised as the conclusion of the party. However there seemed to be plenty of people prepared to stick around longer and pay the ruinous regular drinks prices ($8 for a bottle of Coopers Pale, henceforth the Adelaide People’s Beer™).

Judging by the agonised tweets next morning (Crikey’s Sophie Black appeared hungrover throughout Friday and had resorted to the Black Doctor by 10:46 am), a little too good a time was had by all. However this was just a warm-up event for the many festival schmoozefests until the end of August, so perhaps they’d have been wiser to pace themselves.

Related stories:

1. Schmooze Review: Melbourne Queer Film Festival Launch Despite being ignored by film funding bodies, the Melbourne Queer...
2. Schmooze Review: Melbourne International Arts Festival Program Launch The launch of the program for this year's Melbourne Festival...
3. Will Cheap Books Kill Aussie Publishing? 700 members of the Australian Society of Authors have petitioned...
4. Schmooze Review: St Kilda Film Festival Launch A little short film festival in St Kilda has become...
5. Schmooze Review: Book Launchapalooza We made a cross-town trek to two literary events: first...