Author talk with Sally Piper

About the book

Even though sixteen years have passed, Billie will never recover from the murder of her daughter, Jess, and clings to her memory — and the site of her death — like a life raft. Daniel, who was a toddler when his mother was killed, can recall little of what happened but knows if he’s to have any chance of a better future he needs to move on from that defining event – if only his grandmother would let him. Meanwhile Daniel’s stepmother, Carla, also feels trapped by Jess’s legacy but has a plan that she believes will help everyone to escape from the long shadow of the past.

Deeply human, evocative and beautifully written, Bone Memories explores themes of human connection and the memorialisation of place.

About Sally

Sally Piper’s debut novel Grace’s Table (2014) was shortlisted for the Queensland Premier’s Literary Award - Emerging Queensland Author category and she was awarded a Varuna Publishing Fellowship for her manuscript. Her second novel The Geography of Friendship (2018) was shortlisted for the Australian Book Industry Awards - Small Publishers’ Adult Book of the Year category. She has had short fiction and non-fiction published in various online and print publications in Australia and the UK, to include a prize-winning short story in an anthology, Griffith Review, The Saturday Paper, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Weekend Australian and other literary magazines and journals. Sally holds a Master of Arts (Research) in Creative Writing from Queensland University of Technology. She is an active member of the Queensland writing community, where she presents workshops and seminars, leads in-conversations and mentors other writers.

About Patti

Patti Miller is the author of ten books, including Australia’s best-selling life writing texts, Writing Your Life, The Memoir Book and Writing True Stories. Alongside her novel Child and six memoir/creative non-fiction books, The Last One Who Remembers, Whatever The Gods Do, the critically acclaimed The Mind of a Thief, long and short-listed for a number of prizes, winner of the 2013 NSW Premier’s Prize for History, Ransacking Paris, The Joy of High Places and her latest in 2022, True Friends.