Cycling is one of the greatest things you can do, the author of Moron to Moron tells me.
Tom Doig is among the authors on the Spoke ’n’ Word panel, chaired by local writer and cyclist Vin Maskell, a new event on the Williamstown Literary Festival circuit.
Doig will speak about his 1487-kilometre cycling adventure across northern Mongolia with best mate Tama Pugsley, from a small town called Moron to an even smaller town called Moron.
Two morons travelling from Moron to Moron – what could be funnier? he says
“Cycling is extremely enjoyable and pleasurable – one of the greatest things to do – but to write about it can be extremely boring,” Doig says.
“It’s a bit like masturbating, you know. It’s great fun, but other people sort of don’t want to hear about it. So the challenge of turning it into interesting prose and something that’s not just really repetitive is a big challenge.”
The second author on the panel is Greg Foyster, whose book
Changing Gears: A Pedal-Powered Detour from the Rat Race, details his 6500-kilometre journey from Hobart to Cairns with partner Sophie Chishkovsky.
Along the way, they meet characters who live downsized, environmentally friendly lives.
“We met a monk walking barefoot from Gold Coast to Townsville,” Foyster says. “We also met a modern-day swagman who’d walked around Australia for 25 years.’’
Also on the panel is Kate Leeming, who in 1993 became the first woman to cycle across Russia to raise money for children affected by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
She will talk about her book Out there and Back, on her 25000-kilometre journey across Australia and about her 10-month, 22,040-kilometre ride across Africa in 2010, the subject of her coming book, Njinga.
Maskell says the link between cycling and Australian literature goes back to Banjo Paterson writing about bikes more than 100 years ago. “It will be a very entertaining and insightful evening and a lot of fun,” he says.
» The Spoke ’n’ Word will be at Seaworks on May 27 from 7.30-9.30pm. Early bird tickets bought before May 11 are $20.
