“Beyond Borders – creative strategies for global harmony”
inaugural conference of the Asia Pacific Writers Network
I went travelling in India for 3 months after attending this, and felt I never had the time to really contemplate all that happened here. But – given my renewed commitment to this blog noting my literary-related activities, and given how wonderful this conference was, I must also belatedly and briefly note its occasion. This meeting was the brainchild of the indomitable berni m janssen, a poet, performer and literary activist who managed to get a mob of writers from Asia, the Pacific and Australia to give papers and readings and discuss many issues of moment to us all – freedom and censorship, translation and access, peace and boundaries, and what we might do in the future. The new website will include many of the papers presented here [will add url when I find it].
APWN is related to PEN :
http://www.pen.org.au
As a non-Indigenous Australian who can write and speak with relative freedom (even while our freedom is under threat) I was reminded of how much writers in far more repressive countries continue to suffer for practicing their calling. I met old friends, I met people whose work I knew or who knew mine, and I met lots of new people. Everyone here was a committed writer also engaged in politics. I am particularly interested in new hybrid identities, cross-cultural expressions and readings. In fact I called for a “mongrel” movement which appealed to some but not all.