Travelgal on the move

Or attend the Writer’s Festival Sydney 2024.

I just came out of The Sydney Town Hall’s female toilets. As everywhere after a concert, talk or any bloody event, the queue to the cubicles of desperation is long. And this is the best place to be inspired to write my first book “Conversations with women queuing for the toilet”.

We rage, laugh, complain, cross our legs, discuss and critique the event we have just attended and often compliment each other on what we are wearing.

Today it was all smiles. We had spent an hour with Bonnie Garmus, author of Lessons in Chemistry, a novel that has sold more than seven million copies.

I came across Lessons in Chemistry when it first appeared without ceremony in 2022. My eyes slid past the cover – it was a bit too colourful, too jolly. But the title intrigued me.

Opened it up on the bus home and my brain was up and running. Conversations, ideas, themes- all close to my heart – my happy heart and my black heart: sexism, balance, sexism, science, sexism, love, sexism, free range parenting and a thinking dog.

I shouted loud and hard to my friends to read this book.

Listening to Bonnie Garmus was a joy, urbane, funny, kind, honest and in Aussie parlance, so totally not up herself.

I’m thinking that the interview will be included in the festival’s podcast series. I’ll alert you all when it happens. If you are a fan, don’t miss it and if you haven’t read the book – go get it.