The New Yorker Festival

The New Yorker has a festival; a weekend literary one. In NYC, obvs. anyway, by luck (the luck of the Icelandic volcano that postponed my trip by 6 months), I was in town for this year's one. Obviously i didn't go to all the events, but i did go to a few, my favourite being The New Yorker teaming up with The Moth. The Moth organises storytelling nights where speakers come and tell a story, a true story: no notes, lasting no more than 10 mins. We have something similar in London 5x15 (the one on the 18th Oct has a great line up), but it's less storytelling than a talk, still good though. The Moth nights also generally have a theme... this collaboration with The New Yorker saw New Yorker writers tell a true story about working at the New Yorker. It was completely fascinating as the stories behind the stories emerged - the luck of the first OJ trial expose by Jeffrey Toobin, Jane Mayer's story behind abuse at Abu Graib. they were completely engrossing - truly brilliant - and all without notes... no hesitation, repetition or confusion.

At another event I also heard Zadie Smith and Michael Chabon talk about their work - here's a video link to them discussing their preferences for writing fiction/non-fiction. Zadie Smith seemed on edge. Michael Chabon, well, i think i might just be in love.