When Jill Meagher went missing and was then found murdered in 2012, the city of Melbourne was shaken to the core. Emotional responses ranged from grief to guilt to rage to defensiveness, but no one was left untouched.The media coverage was unrelenting and overwhelming, constantly updating readers and viewers on the latest awful details, and friends and neighbours couldn't help but discuss it. Here acclaimed writer Michaela McGuire eloquently describes how, as the story continued to ...

Dear Madonna,Thank you for showing me that it is okay to be both a devoted mother and on a podium drenched in glitter.Love, Em RuscianoDear Mum,My life is so much more fortunate than yours was and I'm sorry if my unplanned arrival was a part of that.Love, Anthony AlbaneseDear Leigh Sales,What kind of psychopath is unmoved by fairy wrens?Love, Annabel Crabb

With sold-out live events around the country and a bestselling book, Women of Letters have revived the gentle art of letter writing. In this all-new collection of missives, a dazzling array of noteworthy Australians share their wisdom, wit and wildest dreams.Here Marieke Hardy and Michaela McGuire have preserved a year of captivating correspondence. The irresistible line-up features Kate Miller-Heidke writing 'A love letter' to her twelve-year-old self; Di Morrissey recounting a dra...

Women of Letters have conquered the world with their passion for correspondence. Taking their literary salons on a global tour, they've collected an astounding and sweeping array of contributions from some of the world's brightest talents.From Ubud, award-winning author Lionel Shriver writes with unexpected nostalgia about her days as an unknown novelist.Musician Moby pays tribute from Los Angeles to his favourite David Bowie song, even while acknowledging the frustration o...

What dark gastronomic slip does Annabel Crabb have to confess to an unsuspecting guest?How did Mary Anderson change the life of Frank Woodley – despite the fact the two of them have never met?How did a plate of steak teach Missy Higgins a firm lesson about not being too hard on herself?The act of letter writing allows us to slow down and truly connect, with a person, a subject, an idea. At their hugely popular Women of Letters events, Marieke Hardy and Michaela McGuir...

'Letters, we have witnessed firsthand, stir some unusually beautiful things in people,' write Women of Letters curators Marieke Hardy and Michaela McGuire. In From the Heart, the full power of letter-writing is on display.Rock star Amanda Palmer thanks a song for reminding her of the importance of music, and the importance of love.Torn between wanting to encourage and wanting to warn, Senator Penny Wong tells of the 'amazing highs and terrible lows' of choosing a ca...

Winner of the 2015 Melbourne Prize Best Writing Award.A novel about memory, music, friendship, family rifts and reconciliation, this is a beautiful, intelligent read.Nina Jameson, an international consultant on memorial projects based in London, has been happily married to Daniel for twelve years. When her life falls apart she accepts a job in her hometown of Melbourne. There she joins her sister, Zoe, embroiled in her own problems with Elliot, an American biographer of lit...

An impassioned, charming, and hilarious debut novel about a young woman's coming-of-age, during one of the harshest whaling seasons in the history of New South Wales.1908: It's the year that proves to be life-changing for our teenage narrator, Mary Davidson, tasked with providing support to her father's boisterous whaling crews while caring for five brothers and sisters in the wake of their mother's death. But when the handsome John Beck -- a former Methodist preach...

A moving, sweet and uplifting novel of love, grief and the heartache of letting go, from a wonderful new Australian author.Cate Carlton has recently died, yet she is able to linger on, watching her three young children and her husband as they come to terms with their life without her on their rural horse property. As the months pass and her children grow, they cope in different ways, drawn closer and pulled apart by their shared loss. And all Cate can do is watch on he...

Brutal, brave, hilarious -- a full-frontal memoir about surviving the very worst that life can throw at you.Rosie Waterland has never been cool. Growing up in housing commission, Rosie was cursed with a near perfect, beautiful older sister who dressed like Mariah Carey on a Best & Less budget while Rosie was still struggling with various toilet mishaps. She soon realised that she was the Doug Pitt to her sister's Brad, and that cool was not going to be her currency in this life.

The new novel by Alexis Wright, whose previous novel Carpentaria won the Miles Franklin Award and four other major prizes including the ABIA Literary Fiction Book of the Year Award. The Swan Book is set in the future, with Aboriginals still living under the Intervention in the north, in an environment fundamentally altered by climate change. It follows the life of a mute teenager called Oblivia, the victim of gang-rape by petrol-sniffing youths, from the displaced community where she lives...

'I need a wife'It’s a common joke among women juggling work and family. But it’s not actually a joke. Having a spouse who takes care of things at home is a Godsend on the domestic front. It’s a potent economic asset on the work front. And it’s an advantage enjoyed – even in our modern society – by vastly more men than women.Working women are in an advanced, sustained, and chronically under-reported state of wife drought, and there is no sign of rain.