Liverpool Creative Writers

I had a lovely time today conducting a writing workshop for the Liverpool Creative Writers.
I have only just realised that this is the first writing workshop I have even conducted, and it was a great success.
We explored ideas of travel and journey, and how we might be able to apply some of the techniques of travel writing to other forms and genres.
As well as me talking we also did some practical exercises, at the end of which some of the group shared what they had written.
They were a really terrific bunch of people, and we all had lots of fun. So much so that I've already been invited back!

Author Talk, Whitlam Library, Cabramatta

Walter's talk this Wednesday, 9th June was a fantastic success.  Record crowds for Whitlam Library author talk event, record sales for the local Angus & Robertson bookshop.

Thanks to Anne, Andrew and all at the Library for their wonderful help.

Another Vietnamese Language Interview!

I have been really blown away by how many Vietnamese-Australians have contacted me praising Destination Saigon. It is unexpected and humbling.
Even more humbling are the interviews I have conducted in Vietnamese!
The debonair Quang Luu interviewed me for Voice of America's Vietnamese language program, but he was kind and did most of it in English, with me showing off occasionally in Viet. More gruelling was the long interview I did with SBS Radio's Vietnamese-language show. Fortunately it was pre-recorded, and the talented broadcaster edited it in such a way that I sounded fluent and clever. I am neither.
Just last week I did an interview in Cabramatta with the handsome and charming Martin Le for 2GLF's Vietnamese language show. Martin was a little more brutal (and he speaks REALLY quickly), so I fear that I might come across as less-than articulate in the interview. In the end I fell on my sword and begged to answer the final questions in English - which he gallantly allowed me to do.

Author Talk, Whitlam Library, Cabramatta

Walter will be speaking at Whitlam Library, Cabramatta on his travel experiences and on writing Destination Saigon.

Whitlam Library
Wednesday, 9th June, 6.30pm
9725 0360 to RSVP

Everyone is welcome.

Thank you to Anne and Andrew at the council for their wonderful support, the posters look fantastic!!

Fairfield Champion, Wednesday, 2 June 2010

Message from a best-seller
Fairfield Champion,
2 June 2001

CANLEY Vale author Walter Mason has one message for aspiring writers in Fairfield and that is for them to pursue their own adventure.

Hot of the heels of his runaway successful first novel Destination Saigon: Adventures in Vietnam Mason, 39, is in town to catch up with the literary community with a talk at the Whitlam Library in Cabramatta next Wednesday, June 9.

``Hopefully, I can encourage people to pursue their own adventures and undertake their own journeys,'' said Mason, whose debut novel went into reprint on the first week of its release.

``We all have so much to learn, so many friends to make. Every day should be an adventure, whether we are stuck at home or are halfway across the world.''

Mason will return to Vietnam in November to write his second travel adventure in Asia. He said it would deal with themes of Buddhism, spirituality and personal connection.

Mason's tips for young authors:

1.You don't have to be perfect just write. Put pen to paper and don't worry about how wonderful it is. You can always fix it and change it later.

2. Read as much as you write. All writers read, and you especially need to stay up to date with writing in your own creative field.

3. Move in a writers' milieu. Find a writing group, even if it's online. Do writing courses, attend writers' festivals and listen to podcasts.

4. Find your niche.This is the modern variation of ``Write what you know''. The more you know about a subject, the better your writing will be.

5.Blog. Start writing and publish your writing online. It is free, it is easy, and it is amazing how many authors have been discovered this way.

Walter Mason will give a talk at the Whitlam Library on Wednesday, June 9, at 6.30pm. He will holding a travel writing workshop at the Liverpool Writers' Festival.

Fairfield Advance, Wednesday 2nd June 2010

Buddhist Sutras in Vietnam

Sutra recitation is the principal practice of Vietnamese Buddhism. 

It is performed daily by monks and dedicated lay-people, and to sit in a monastery garden and listen to the heavenly sound of monastic voices chanting the scriptures, accompanied by bell and wooden drum, is one of my favourite things to do. Actually taking part in the chanting is a little more demanding, however. Though I am reasonably familiar with the liturgy (at one stage in my life I was a dedicated attender of evening sutra chanting), I still find the whole thing exhausting, involving as it does complicated shufflings of books and chanting sheets, bowing at the appropriate areas, and just keeping up with the sometimes dizzying pace of the chants. To complicate matters more, last time I was in Vietnam I was attending a Vajrayana temple in my suburb, where the whole practise of sutra chanting is ten-times more complicated. I was always doing something wrong, and being reprimanded by the elderly ladies who saw themselves as the guardians of correct conduct in the temple. So here is a list of sutras you will regularly encounter in the Vietnamese Buddhist context. I don't for a moment pretend to be a Buddhist scholar, so offer no analysis of the texts discussed. All I can do is describe them how I, in my ignorance, see them, and attempt to instruct you on when and how they are used. I'm happy to receive any corrections or further insights. 1. The Lotus Sutra: This is the grand-daddy of sutras in Vietnamese Buddhism. Most temples use this sutra as their fundamental text, and congregations chant their way through it a couple of times in the course of a year. Monks tell me that it offers the highest teaching of Mahayana Buddhism, and so can safely be taught across all sects and schools. Those of you familiar with Japanese Buddhism will be well aware of th importance of the Lotus Sutra in that culture as well. I have worked my way through it in English a couple of times, but will confess that it leaves more-or-less bewildered. I prefer chanting it in Vietnamese, where I don't feel obliged to make some kind of sense of it. 2. Kinh Pho Mon: I don't know what to call it in English. Basically it is the twenty-fifth chapter of the Lotus Sutra which sets out the special qualities of Kwan Yin Bodhisattva (Quan Am Bo Tat). Because of the great reverence Vietnamese Buddhists have for the Goddess of Mercy, this chapter is often printed as a stand-alone text, and is often recited in its entirety during special prayer sessions. 3. The Great Compassion Dharani: OK, so I know it's not a sutra, but it is long-ish, and is a central part of the Vietnamese Buddhist liturgy. It is chanted several times a day in monasteries, and is always a part of the formal prayer liturgy. I love the beautiful, meaningless sounds of this long mantra. A nun I know has it as the ringtone of her mobile phone. 4. Heart Sutra: Well-known in English, this short sutra is also chanted nightly, with its mantra of Gate Gate Paragate Parasamgate left in its original sanskrit. 5. Diamond Sutra: All monks know this sutra well and study it, though I can't recall ever having heard it recited. Most monks in Vietnam see themselves as connected to the Zen school, even if they don't practise meditation, and so this is an important text to them. 6. Metta Sutta: This Theravada sutra is much discussed in monastic circles, and praised as being applicable to all schools. It is worth noting that there is a sizeable Theravada minority in Vietnam, and that even Mahayana monastics spend some time studying Pali and the Theravada sutras - quite a unique situation in the Buddhist world, I should imagine. 7. Amitabha Sutra: While Pure Land belief and practice is almost universal among both monastic and lay practitioners in Vietnam, most temples eschew the study and chanting of the Amitabha Sutra, the principal text of the Pure Land school. There are, however, a very few monasteries which see themselves exclusively as Pure Land institutions, and so they chant this sutra in the evenings and teach from it. The numbers are actually growing because of the power, wealth and influence of Pure Land groups from Taiwan who pump a lot of money into Vietnam and encourage temples to be stricter about the teaching of Pure Land Buddhism. 8. Avatamsaka Sutra: After the Lotus Sutra this is probably the most revered text amongst serious Buddhists in Vietnam. Thich Nhat Hanh has a really beautiful audio series on this sutra called The Ultimate Dimension, and I can't recommend it highly enough.