Lit – short for literature, Lit – illuminating, Lit- slang for exciting.

A weekend and more at the Brisbane Writers Festival in its new venue at Brisbane Powerhouse meticulously arranged by Jackie Ryan, the Artistic Director and Fiona Stager of Avid Bookshop providing us with all the nourishment we need on the page.

A wonderful mix of local talent with international flavour, some real draw cards, old favourites, and aspiring writers. It could not have been better other than to say there was almost too much to choose from and some (arrgh) clashing schedules which meant that I had to make a choice.

My love of literature began at home, with a father who was a prodigious reader, a sister who owned a bookshop and was a poet and author, in fact sisters who wrote for their livelihood.

Jaipur Literature Festival was the start of this closer and more enduring love of literature. The Festival held in the heart of Jaipur was momentous and magical all in one, and above all free, and I was drawn to it each year like bees to nectar.

Literature festivals have popped up like mushrooms after rain, in Greece, Colorado, the Hay Festival, The Himalayas and many other places – Bali is another close by.

Having several on my doorstep has been wonderful, and this one in my home city. There was not a single session I came out where I felt I had not gained something. Sheila Fitzpatrick on The death of Stalin, a real insight into how the Soviet world perceived him and his predecessor Lenin and the way this informs some of the current day rhetoric from Russia.

Bettany Hughes on the Seven Wonders of the world – how many can you count on your fingers? – we only got four. She talked about how stories and discoveries have reshaped some of the accepted wisdom surrounding these wonders. The Colossus of Rhodes may have existed and may have been destroyed by an earthquake but it was more myth than fact that it straddled the port. She has written a book recounting the discoveries, the exciting adventures which entices us to explore them all over again.

Sophie Gilbert writes for the Atlantic. In her new book Girl on Girl she explains how the 90s and the 2000s has been a backward move for women and feminism with the arrival of celebrities, influencers and pop culture taking over and the way mass culture commodified women. A long way from the sisterhood of feminism in the 60s and 70s.

Fact for Fiction, a panel of female writers mixing it up with marvellous dexterity and penmanship. Toni Jordan, a writer I have read, now writing about her own childhood in the guise of a 12 year old girl growing up in Brisbane in the 1970s in her new novel Tenderfoot. Kimberley Freeman who has written 31 novels decided she wanted to try a whole different genre and she came across Zara Holt. ( yes the wife of Prime Minister Holt who famously walked into the sea and was never seen again) A vibrant successful entrepreneur from a very young age and a real icon in her time. Eric Puchner who wrote Dream State teaches writing – some of his pupils ask if they have got it – He asks them – Do you like sentences ?

I love them. I often stop and read them again, then out loud, then marked and memorised – those moments where the placing of words on the page takes your breath away.

There were many more to listen to and pick up in the bookshop.

So LIT it was and LIT it continues to be. I am always energised, engaged and inspired by these events and can only thank those who take the time and effort to put them together for us to enjoy. It rained in the night, the light settling in the city uncovering a blaze of purple carpets being rolled out all around the park. The end of some special days.

A fragile peace dawns in the Middle East.