Bedtime Stories: Writers in conversation about the biggest subject of them all

Celebrated Australian author Chloe Hooper joins doctor and writer Peter Goldsworthy in conversation guided by novelist and poet Heather Taylor Johnson about writing about illness and mortality, in the JMCCCP public forum event "Bedtime Stories" on Thursday, 2 June. 

When writer Chloe Hooper’s partner was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive illness, she had to find a way to tell their two young sons. By instinct, she turns to the bookshelf. In her new Bedtime Story – part memoir, part manual – she asks whether such news can be broken as a bedtime tale. Is there a perfect book to prepare children for loss? At around the same time, writer, doctor and JMCCCP member Peter Goldsworthy was diagnosed with myeloma. He asked himself what sort of lessons cancer could teach him. In his memoir-in-progress, The Cancer Finishing School, Goldsworthy draws on tragic, comic and transcendent stories from his patients who had been there first. Heather Taylor Johnson has also written lucidly about her own chronic illness. 

Reviewer Imogene Dewey (The Guardian, 13 May 2022), describes Bedtime Story as "an intensely intimate portrait of one household “cracked open”". 

Bedtime Stories is a free event, with registration required. For more information and to register: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/organizations/events