In conversation with Sandie Docker, author of The Lyrebird Lake Ladies Choir
Schedule
Sat Jul 13 2024 at 02:00 pm to 03:00 pm
UTC+10:00Location
Libraries ACT (Dickson branch) | Canberra, CT
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Join us for a visit from bestselling author, Sandie Docker, to discuss her new book The Lyrebird Lake Ladies Choir.A deeply moving story about the power of discovering your voice, set between 1973 and present day, Sandie Docker expertly interweaves the stories of three women to confront the very real issues many face in modern-Australia every day from homelessness to the unhealed scars of historic forced adoption. After reading a 2023 report from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare reporting that older women were becoming the fastest growing demographic of homelessness in the country, increasing by 40% between 2011 and 20211, Sandie decided to research further and was quickly confronted by how easily these women’s stories could have been her own. Alongside this understanding, her own unresolved family secrets led her to question the emotional fallout from forced adoptions in the 1970s and 1980s. In an attempt to shed light on these two issues and give a voice to those impacted by both, she wrote the stories of Eleanor, Maggie and Hannah.
For years, lost and lonely women found their home in the stately federation house by Lyrebird Lake and their family in the Lyrebird Lake Ladies Choir, run by sisters Eleanor and Maggie. When Eleanor enters the choir into the All Voices Championship, it offers them all a chance to make up for lost dreams. At the same time, single mum Hannah arrives in town, homeless after being widowed and hoping for a new start with her son. With her angelic voice, Hannah could give the choir a winning edge. But when Eleanor hears her singing a long-forgotten lullaby, she is transported to her past, a traumatic time when two teenage girls were banished from their Irish homeland to a faraway country. Will Hannah’s arrival mend old wounds, or will the secret she unknowingly carries tear the sisters apart?
Sandie’s sixth book is an empowering and hopeful look at how sometimes owning up to the secrets we tell ourselves can help us to find our way back home.
Sandie will be joined with romance fiction author Abra Pressler. Author of More and Love Other Scores.
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Where is it happening?
Libraries ACT (Dickson branch), Dickson Library, 50 Dickson Pl, Dickson ACT 2602, Australia,Canberra, Australian Capital TerritoryEvent Location & Nearby Stays:
