Today, I was absolutely buzzing. The fire within me was burning strong and propelling me to travel to a suburb of Sydney called Eveleigh, which turns out to be a bit of a walk from Central station, but is super close to Redfern station.

As I walked the city sidewalk on my way to Carriageworks (where the festival is held), I was excited to be out, excited to feel the cool breeze on my face, excited to be wearing an expressive outfit, and couldn’t wait to experience the festival.

Once I left Central station, I realised that the walk to Carriageworks was more lengthy than I anticipated—close to half an hour. So, I thought, what an opportune moment to start streaming.

Streaming is something new that I’ve been doing in recent weeks after wanting to find a new outlet to be expressive, to be creative, to form a community, and maybe make a little bit of extra cash. The biggest driver for me is that I want to express myself, my way. I want to talk about things that matter to me and to promote the written works that I put so much of my heart and soul into. And of course, I wanna have fun doing it.

Initially I had come up with an outline for the kind of streams I’d like to do on the streaming platform Twitch. I worked to set up my profile and get the technical considerations for successfully streaming to an audience in order. I also started following a few channels that I found engaging when I first started exploring the platform, and have been looking to those creators for a bit of inspiration and to see how they engage their audiences.
And as time has gone on, I have organically seen myself being drawn to streaming my experiences; my thoughts on society, culture and politics both local and international.

As I took my walk from the station to the Writer’s Festival, I wanted to film my walk there, and to stream the surroundings of the festival as I was seeing and experiencing them. That’s one of the things that I have found so cool about Twitch, is that even if you’re at home or in another part of the world, there are creative content creators out there who are able to bring other parts of the world and experiences that you’re either not able to realise or wouldn’t have thought to be something you’re interested in or knew about, to the forefront of your mind and bring your imagination to life.

How I feel when watching streams like this is that I’m transported to another place. Even if I’m not physically there, I’m able to experience this far away land and have my brain fill in the blanks for me, meanwhile being guided by a friendly and hospitable host on my journey. It is very much like the experience of stepping into a VR environment. It’s transportive and makes you feel limitless, at least for me personally.

So as I psychoanalyse my decision for why I want to now create more streams like this where I’m able to bring the audience on a journey, let’s transition to me actually getting to the festival grounds, what I saw, and how I spent my time there.

The previous day I had tuned into the festival via livestream and watched a majority of their available sessions during that day, especially stricken by the panels that included the journalists and photographers that have lived through armed conflicts, have captured the actions, thoughts, and experiences of people who are stuck in those areas of the world, and who are alive to tell the tale meanwhile also mourning the colleagues they have lost.

It truly made me feel like the world had stopped and I was myopically fixated on the horror and trauma that these journalists have felt, along with the people who were the innocent victims of the crossfire and the subjects of the stories that the journalists shared with the world. Now that is powerful journalism. Something I want to achieve in my life going forward.

Okay, so I eventually reached Carriageworks and took in the scene. Interestingly enough, there was a farmer’s market going on under the roof covered area outside of the convention building. From the staircase, I took in the sight of the very large crowd congregated at the market and felt enlivened by the buzz in the air.

I took the stairs down and entered the building where the festival sessions were going on and got my bearings. Leaving my coat at the coatcheck area, I felt lighter and more comfortable to explore further. Mind you I was still livestreaming almost the whole time and had to juggle holding up my phone camera to make it a worthwhile experience for my viewers. Not a super easy feat, but I made do and didn’t feel all that hampered by it, just thrilled to be there and to take my viewers around with me. In the centre of the corridor area which led to the different auditoriums and stages reserved for the speaker sessions, I saw multiple giant tables filled with books. Books by the people who were being featured as part of this year’s festival. I immediately wanted to see if I could find the book by the author who I had bought a ticket to see speak about the art of journalism. Took a little bit of time but I found it and made the purchase, noticing that I could also get the book signed later after the session. Before the ticketed session, I had a chance to catch a free session in one of the halls and have a little rest to speak my thoughts on stream about the topic of the free session, which regarded the experience of an older gay man and how the legality of gay relationships has changed over the decades. It made me think about how far the LGBTQ+ community has come, but also that we need to keep speaking up and making ourselves seen and our voices heard. Although legally we have achieved many significant breakthroughs in the world over the years, the social persecution still remains, and it’s more widespread than you think.

Just in time for the start of the ticketed session with revered Australian journalists Leigh Sales and Lisa Millar, I managed to fill my stomach with a hearty meal for a late lunch, which kept me present and engaged for the session ahead.

Funny, witty, and insightful are the words I’d use to describe the session. Both Leigh and Lisa are close friends and it shows in their banter together. The challenges, lessons, and fast-paced hijinks of their work were shared with the audience to a wonderful reception and, for me, were genuinely insightful and a master-class of all the things to expect and work on as I polish my craft to become a seasoned professional in the field.
Meeting the ladies after the session was wonderful as well, and they both wished me luck in my endeavour as well as gave me another little nugget of truth when diving into the field: it is a painstaking job, but so rewarding when you realise its significance and how it can touch the lives of many.

I left the festival exhilarated but also pretty exhausted. Luckily, I took a train back to Central from Redfern, which was very close to the festival venue, and I saved myself both the energy and the moola for another day.

The work continues, and I can’t wait to take it a day at a time and see where it takes me.

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Thank you for reading about my experience at the 2024 Sydney Writer’s Festival. I highly recommend it for any other burgeoning writers and passionate readers.

If you’d like to watch segments of my stream at the festival this year, please visit my Twitch channel and subscribe if you’d like to join me on my future adventures.

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