Jill recently visited China and Hong Kong, where she took part in the Asia Pacific Writing Across Cultures Symposium. The event was organised for teachers and students of Creative Writing from all over the world, including many parts of Asia, UK and USA.
Jill greatly enjoyed meeting so many writers from different parts of Australasia, hearing how their concerns about Creative Writing were both familiar (a plea for students to read more for instance, and the need for the critical/creative polarisation of much of the debate about the subject to be finally put to bed) and specific concerns to particular regions. Creative Writing is a very new discipline in mainland China, for instance.
She also gave a reading from The Great Lover at the gloriously decadent Mandarin Oriental Hotel for the Man Hong Kong Literature Festival, amongst all the tinkling china and rose petal jam and scones. Then on to Beijing for the Beijing Bookworm Festival to do a British Council event (with a Chinese translator) and a workshop on how to get published (best advice: write a good book).
Below: a picture of Jill with her son Felix on Mother's Day in snowy China, where she fell down three times on the treacherous marble steps of the Forbidden City.
Listen here to an interview with Jill Dawson made at the Mandarin Oriental in Hong Kong, about The Great Lover.
