So You are Doing a Festival? Choose Your Moderators Wisely

Phoenix Publishers chief executive officer John Mwazemba (left) displays one of the books published under the funding of USAID and DFID at Boulevard Hotel, Nairobi, on March 12, 2014. We are in the second half of the year. For the writers and book lovers on this continent, this is the time of year when most of the literary festivals occur. PHOTO| SALATON NJAU  NATION MEDIA GROUP

In Summary

• It goes without saying then that a moderator can make or break a panel and ruin a festival or make it memorable for both panelists and audiences.
• I recently wrote about my own disastrous experience with a moderator on Facebook.
• That was not the worst one I have observed, though.

By ZUKISWA WANNER
More by this Author

We are in the second half of the year. For the writers and book lovers on this continent, this is the time of year when most of the literary festivals occur. In September, as we folks in Kenya look forward to Storymoja, Algerians will be seeing what literary surprises are in store at Algiers Literary Festival and in Cape Town, word is that my elder sister Petina will be bringing her new release The Book of Memory to the African market at Open Book.

Also there I hear, will be my literary crush, Alain Mabanckou. Then there are two festivals in Nigeria in October and November to close off the continental literary festival calendar.

What all these festivals have in common is that they have panels of writers or other artists which are moderated by someone. In my nine years experience, I have observed that often, festival organisers will have a moderator who is a known name — be it in academia, on television, or other well-known personality.

CONTRARY TO WHAT MOST WRITERS BELIEVE

This is because, contrary to what writers like to believe, most people do not know who we are and having a known face as a moderator is one way to ensure that people buy tickets and attend a particular panel.

It goes without saying then that a moderator can make or break a panel and ruin a festival or make it memorable for both panelists and audiences.

I recently wrote about my own disastrous experience with a moderator on Facebook.

That was not the worst one I have observed, though.

There was the time I attended another literary festival where the moderator was drunk. He had two writers on panel. The format of this particular festival was that each writer would read an excerpt of their work to tease the audience. The moderator would ask the panellists some questions and then open up questions to the audience. The first writer read. People clapped.

Then as the other writer was about to start reading, the moderator said, “No no no. Don’t read. Let’s just get into the discussion because your book is nonsense. We can’t torture the audience to that rubbish.”

The writer laughed nervously and said, “My moderator is always joking, anyway I shall read from…”

The moderator interrupted, “No, I was not joking. Your book really is nonsense. Don’t read.” As you can imagine, there was embarrassment and after that night, we did not see that moderator for the rest of the festival. Someone must have told him what he did.

Offensive comments

Then there was the time where the moderator’s questions to one of the panellists, a beautiful woman, were so offensive that she walked off the stage halfway through the discussion. And the other writers followed in solidarity.

On the other hand, there are also the good moderators.

A fine example of this was my moderator at the Algiers Literary Festival back in 2011. As my Arabic and French language skills are non-existent, I was rightfully nervous about a literary discussion in a French-speaking country. With no French, would I even have an audience?

But this woman was an absolute pro and I was pleasantly surprised. We had an audience of at least a 100 people.

This woman had been selected to moderate my discussion with her and she took this seriously enough to translate certain excerpts of my book that she thought an Algerian audience may relate to and got them loaded on the festival site.

So when we had our panel, not only did she ask me fun but incisive questions, our audience was also engaged and engaging.

This, despite our conversation being translated into French and Arabic throughout the panel. Louisa and I still communicate frequently.

When done well, moderating can ensure that questions are alert and cannot wait for questions to open up to the floor so they can participate by asking their own questions.

Even when not traditional readers, they will want to read the works of the writers they have listened to.

The reason this happens is because the moderators would have engaged with the works of the panellists beforehand and may even go a step further and do some Google legwork so they can share some fun anecdotes about their panelists.

As a writer, when you leave a panel with this moderator, even if you did not know them before, you want to work with them again. If they are writers, you want to read all their works and if they are newsreaders, you switch to watching their news reports from that day forth.

As we count down to Storymoja, I am looking forward to all the good moderators I know they will have. No pressure.

AND THE WINNER IS...

Joyce Magenya is the winner of my little quiz from last week on The Visitors’ Book.

Her answer was that it “Enables the host to keen an up-to-date record of those who have visited…signing at the beginning of the tour ensures that it’s not overtaken by events of the day.” 

Joyce, there is an autographed copy of The Madams on its way to you.

Zukiswa Wanner is a South  African author living in Kenya. wanner.zukiswa@gmail.com