In today’s Australian, Jack the Insider, entertains with an amusing swipe at those self-adsorbed people who call themselves writers.

I’ve always said I’d never go to writers’ festivals and true to my word, I never have. The mere thought of sitting in a room filled with writers fills me with a deep sense of anguish…

I’ll let you into a little secret. Writers, like actors, are sometimes vaguely interesting, often horrendously boring but always hopelessly, relentlessly self-absorbed. I have seen scribblers lapse into speaking of themselves in the third person, weighing up their remarks with extravagant gravity and no apparent sense of self-consciousness of the arses they are making of themselves.

Perhaps this why the Melbourne Writers Festival turned into a dog-and-pony show this year, featuring a bunch of non-literary mad escapades. Anything to avoid the ugliness of writers talking about themselves.

We’re an odd breed, to be honest. I like the company of people, don’t get me wrong, but I am just as happy on my own. Writing is a solitary affair with long hours strapped to a keyboard. Like most jobs it is often a chore and only occasionally joyful. Even the pleasure of a near perfect paragraph is one that goes unshared at least for the time being.    Read on…