I have attended a lot of literature festivals – I absolutely love them. The first one I ever went to was the Melbourne Writers Festival. When I lived in Myanmar, I went to the Irrawaddy Literature Festival every year. Aung San Suu Kyi was the patron and it was an exciting demonstration of how freedom of expression was growing in the military dictatorship. And tragically, it was only temporary. I also loved the Ubud Literature Festival in Bali – it was where I met the co-founder of Lonely Planet, Tony Wheeler, who many years later endorsed my second book.

Suffice to say, I have attended a lot of literature festivals, but only ever as a guest. Never as an actual author. When IngramSpark invited me to join them on a self-publishing panel at Byron Writers Festival, I was wildly excited. I started counting down the days.

When I got to the showgrounds and saw the size of the Lily Pily Marquee I gulped – it was way bigger than I expected.

It was an amazing experience and the audience was fantastic – there were at least 300 people there. I was joined onstage by Chris Munnery from IngramSpark and publishing expert Anna Featherstone. I spoke about how heartbroken I was at first when I couldn’t get an agent or publisher for Our Home in Myanmar. And then I fell in love with self-publishing – and today it occupies my whole world, as I help other nonfiction authors to publish their books. I love the creative freedom and the ability to determine the kinds of book marketing I will do.

My mum was in the front row, which was so nice. She flew up from Melbourne. We combined it with a holiday with my kids in beautiful Byron.

I hope to return to Byron Writers Festival every year. I am also desperate to attend the Whitsundays Literature Festival because it looks so beautiful.

What’s your favourite literature festival?