Stories from bad diaries close Word For Word

THE Word For Word National Non-Fiction Festival wrapped up on Sunday with a selection of hilarious and embarrassing stories from teenagers, told live and many years later by their authors.

The Bad Diaries Salon, sponsored by the Times News Group, featured actor and writer William McInnes, YA author Sue Lawson, awardwinning broadcaster Joel Carnegie and writer and editor Jo Case reading hilarious and occasionally embarrassing extracts from their own diaries to match the theme “Get Real” (which was also the theme of the festival).

The event was MC’d by Jenny Ackland, who created the Bad Diaries Salon concept in 2017 by asking on Twitter if there were any writers who still had their teenage diaries, and if they would front up and read from them, live.

Salons have since been held across Australia and New Zealand, each with a theme – events so far have been on “Mistakes”, “Trips”, “Regrets” and “Deleted”.

Ackland said the rules were simple, including no writing to purpose – “the words should be original, and preferably bad, because bad is good in this situation” – no recording of the live event, no sharing stories outside of the room, and no submission process.

Word For Word’s 2018 iteration featured 76 presenters – including Helen Garner, Professor Marcia Langton, Kerry O’Brien, Clementine Ford, Peter Cochrane and Peter Phelps – across 45 events.