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Desperate Housewives meets Six Feet Under in this brilliantly moving and darkly comic novel, which charts the attempts of dying heroine Delia – a modern day Mrs Beeton – to prepare her family for the future and lay to rest a ghost from her past.Delia Bennet has made a living writing a series of hugely successful modern household guides, with advice on everything from laundry to lovers.The one thing she hasn’t ever given advice on is her own situation: barely forty but dying.To prepare her family, she tries everything from writing lists to teaching her daughters to make the perfect cup of tea. What she really needs is a household guide: the kind she is expert at writing. She sets to work.But the writing forces Delia to confront painful ghosts from her past. there is a journey she needs to make, and one last vital thing she must do…

A brilliantly moving and darkly comic novel, which charts the attempts of dying heroine Delia – a modern day Mrs Beeton – to prepare her family for the future and lay to rest a ghost from her pastInspired by her heroine, Isabella Beeton, Delia has made a living writing a series of hugely successful modern household guides, as well as an acerbic domestic advice column. As the book opens, she is not yet forty, but has only a short time to live.She is preoccupied with how to prepare herself and her family for death, from writing exhaustive lists to teaching her young daughters how to make a perfect cup of tea. What she needs, more than anything, is a manual – exactly the kind she is the expert at writing. Realising this could be her greatest achievement (for who could be better equipped to write The Household Guide to Dying?) she sets to work. But, in the writing, Delia is forced to confront the ghosts of her past, and the events of fourteen years previously. There is a journey she needs to make, back to the landscape of her past, and one last vital thing she needs to do.Hugely original, life affirming and humorous, The Household Guide to Dying illuminates love, loss, family and the place we call home.

A moving novel, charting a dying woman’s attempts to prepare her family for the future. For fans of Maggie O’Farrell and Audrey Niffenegger.Inspired by her heroine, Isabella Beeton, Delia has made a living writing a series of hugely successful modern household guides. As the book opens, she is not yet forty, but has only a short time to live.Preoccupied with how to prepare herself and her family for death, Delia realizes that what she really needs, more than anything, is a manual. Realising this could be her greatest achievement, she sets to work. But, in the writing, Delia is forced to confront the ghosts of her past.Hugely original, life affirming and humorous, The Household Guide to Dying illuminates love, loss and the place we call home.

For it is in the simple act of reading where the living and the dead, the real and the imagined, meet. It is in the simple act of reading where we exercise those two most sacred of human vocations: compassion and creativity. For as we know, without either of these primes there is no possibility for a humanity present or past worth talking about. Junot DiazA collection of essays and memoir pieces on the topic of reading, in particular what it means for writers to be readers and how that has shaped their life. The Simple Act of Reading will support Sydney Story Factory by emphasising the importance of reading in shaping an individual’s future. Contributors include; Debra Adelaide, Joan London, Delia Falconer, Sunil Badami, Gabrielle Carey, Luke Davies, Tegan Bennett Daylight, Kate Forsyth, Giulia Giuffre, Andy Griffiths, Anita Heiss, Gail Jones, Jill Jones, Catherine Keenan, Malcolm Knox, Wayne Macauley, Fiona McFarlane, David Malouf, Rosie Scott, Carrie Tiffany and Geordie Williamson.

Creative Writing Practice: reflections on form and process explores the craft of creative writing by illuminating the practices of writers and writer-educators.