Liane Moriarty at #PWF15

Last month I went to the Perth Writers Festival to meet one of my favourite authors f all time – Liane Moriarty. I went to all three sessions she was at and I got to meet her and have all my books of hers signed. What’s even better was that I won her secret Facebook competition, the prize being a signed book of hers, and luckily I had every single book of hers already, except for one! The Husband’s Secret – so she signed it and gave it to me. Yay!

I’ve already read The Husband’s Secret but I’m glad I own it now, the cover is gorgeous, and the book itself isn’t too shabby either, haha! (You can read my review of The Husband’s Secret by Liane Moriarty here)

The first session of Liane’s was her main one I suppose, featuring her newest book Big Little Lies (a review of that one coming soon!). I was pretty darn excited for it, to say the least. I sat in the second row from the front. In this session I questioned my pronunciation skills and learnt that Liane is pronounced Lee-AHn, and not how I thought it was pronounced. After this session I went straight to the signing, practically walking beside Liane and failing to muster the courage to say hello and speak that secret phrase for the Facebook competition. But even though I was like 10^th in line at the signing, I managed to win! I was thrilled and confounded as to how I was the first person to whisper that secret phrase (“I wasn’t born in an earthquake either”) and win. Liane signed all 100000 of the books I brought plus the one I won and she was delightful. I should have asked for a photo with her.

But I found a photo of me in the line for the signing! Pan Macmillan Australia posted it on twitter.

I'm the asian-looking girl third in line :P

The second session was a panel with a few other authors, talking about ordinary lives, and the extraordinariness of them. I do kinda wish Liane spoke more because there was one quite boisterous and loud author on the panel (although she was funny at times, I found her a tad obnoxious) and Liane has quite a gentle and unassuming personality. Basically I was only interested in what one author had to say.

The last session was all about turning the book into a film, and Liane was joined with the author of The Rosie Effect, Graeme Simsion. Liane told us about meeting with Nicole Kidman for coffee, how Reese Witherspoon’s production company is making the film, and how Nicole Kidman wants to play the role of Celeste and Reese Witherspoon wants to play the role of Madeline. Some of what she said was repeated from earlier sessions but I didn’t really mind. Graeme also had really interesting things to say because he’s a screen-writer as well as a novelist, so he knows about the process. I haven’t read his books yet but I still found everything he had to say rather insightful. The authors were asked about their dream casts, and Liane promptly said, Matt Damon, in any role. I would heartily agree. 
Big Little Lies is going to be set in the US, which makes sense, but is still a little sad to think of – to think of all the lovely Australian things infused into the novel, and knowing the world will be seeing quite a different version of Pirriwee Public on the big screen. But anyway, it’s probably for the best – I always feel a little strange watching big blockbusters set in Australia. It’s weird to me, watching movies with characters that have Aussie accents, it’s just too real, or something. I don’t know.

Finally this post is up! It took me ages to write. Anyway, I need to go review Big Little Lies now, and another book, and those posts shall be up next. If you haven’t picked up Big Little Lies, I suggest you find it in a bookstore or Big W or online, buy it, and read it! It’s really really good. And funny, and those characters will take your heart for a little spin.