Queensland Premier's Award for a Work of State Significance

BONE MEMORIES is a finalist in the 2023 Queensland Premier’s Award for a Work of State Significance.

Open to all Australian authors, this award is for a work primarily focused on documenting and increasing the awareness of Queensland stories, history or voices.

Judges' comments: 

Bone Memories is a deeply considered and multi-layered examination of the way trauma is held in Australian soil. Through the prism of one near-shattered family, the novel shows that healing is possible when radical listening is at the heart of what we do, so we might move towards radical living.  

The winner will be announced on 6 September at a ceremony for the Queensland Literary Awards held at State Library of Queensland.

To view all finalists across the 12 categories of the awards, visit the State Library of Queensland website here.

The Courier-Mail People's Choice Queensland Book of the Year Award

BONE MEMORIES is a finalist in The Courier-Mail Queensland Book of the Year Award.

This award celebrates Queensland authors and is part of the Queensland Literary Awards, with the winner determined by the public.

To cast your vote for your favourite book by a Queensland author visit the State Library of Queensland website here.

The winner will be announced at the Queensland Literary Awards ceremony on 6 September 2023.

Bone Memories longlisted for a 2023 Davitt Award

BONE MEMORIES has been longlisted for a Sisters in Crime 2023 Davitt Award in the Adult Novel category.

Now in its 23rd year, the Davitt Awards celebrate Australian female crime writers. The shortlist will be announced in late July. To see all those titles longlisted across the four categories of the awards visit the Sisters in Crime website.

Brisbane Writers Festival

Workshop: Landscape Writing

Place and landscapes are often overlooked in stories when they could be used as powerful drivers of character and narrative. This workshop aims to redress this through a series of readings, writing exercises and discussions which assist writers to re-imagine their relationship with the natural world and guide them in new ways of thinking and writing about place.

This three-hour interactive workshop is brought to you by the 2023 Brisbane Writers Festival. Throughout the session, Sally Piper, author of the novels Bone Memories and The Geography of Friendship, will take writers on a deep dive into their relationship with the natural world, providing them with ideas and strategies to write about landscapes in a way that compellingly transports their representation of place beyond the sensory to the emotional, philosophical and political. All participants need bring with them to this generative workshop is a pen, paper and a passion for the places that sustain us, and a desire to write about them in new and meaningful ways.

Venue: Heritage Collections Learning Room, State Library of Queensland

Date: Saturday 13 May

Time: 10am - 1pm

Bookings for this event are essential and can be made here through the BWF website.

Brisbane Writers Festival

Panel: Secrets and Grief

Some truths can only be glimpsed through the prism of loss, with grief exposing us to the most painful and revelatory parts of the human experience. These moving novels depict grief as a painful, productive process through which we might apprehend the darkest and most deeply felt recesses of our own natures.

Sally will be on this panel discussing her latest novel BONE MEMORIES with fellow novelists Kylie Ladd (I’ll Leave You With This), Emma Grey (The Last Love Note) and Charlotte Nash (Twenty-Six Letters), moderated by Cass Moriarty (Parting Words) at the 2023 Brisbane Writers Festival.

Venue: Queensland Terrace, State Library of Queensland

Date: Thursday 11 May

Time: 2:30pm - 3:30pm

Bookings for this event are essential and can be made here through the BWF website.

Brisbane Writers Festival

Panel: Writing the Landscape

The brutal beauty of Australia’s landscape has long fascinated writers and artists, as quaint, Rousseauan visions of nature routinely collapse into fire and flood. These novelists examine the psychological topography of Australian fiction and our passive-aggressive relationship to a volatile Mother Earth.

Sally will be in conversation with Australian novelists Robbie Arnott (Limberlost), Inga Simpson (Willowman) and Claire G Coleman (Enclave) about their most recent books at the 2023 Brisbane Writers Festival.

Venue: Auditorium 1, State Library of Queensland

Date: Sunday 14 May

Time: 2:30pm - 3:30pm

Bookings for this event can be made here through the BWF website.

Brisbane Writers Festival

Panel: Growing Older Better

What can science teach us about how to live our best lives? Two health experts contemplate how we make the most of our time on earth, from breaking out of the habits that hold us back to discovering what can really keep us young.

Sally will be in conversation with Dr Norman Swan (So You Want to Live Younger Longer) and Dr Rebecca Ray (Small Habits for a Big Life) about their books at the 2023 Brisbane Writers Festival.

Venue: Auditorium 1, State Library of Queensland

Date: Sunday 14 May

Time: 10am - 11am

Bookings for this event can be made through the BWF website.

Dublin Literary Award

BONE MEMORIES has been longlisted for the 2023 Dublin Literary Award. The annual Award is sponsored by Dublin City Council and administered by Dublin City Libraries. Nominations for the Award are made by libraries from throughout the world. State Library of Queensland was the nominating library for BONE MEMORIES.

Witnessing Landscapes: Nature Writing Workshops

Sally Piper takes writers on a deep dive into their relationship with the natural world in this 3-hour workshop. Through a series of writing exercises, readings and discussions participants will re-examine their connections with certain landscapes and places in their work, beginning with the senses, then moving onto the emotional, physical, political and philosophical realm of those connections.

All they need bring to this workshop is a passion for the places that sustain them and the desire to write about them in new and meaningful ways.

The events are free but bookings are essential. Follow the links below to book at a library near you.

Garden City Library

Address: Level R4, Garden City Shopping Centre, Kessels Road, Upper Mount Gravatt, QLD 4122

Date and time: Saturday 8 October 2022 from 10am - 1pm

Wynnum Library

Address: 145 Florence Street, Wynnum, QLD 4178

Date and time: Monday 10 October 2022 from 10am - 1pm

Kenmore Library

Address: Kenmore Village, 9 Brookfield Road, Kenmore Hills, Q:D 4069

Date and time: Saturday 15 October 2022, from 10am - 1pm

In-conversation with Holly Ringland

Sally Piper will be in-conversation with international bestselling author of The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart, Holly Ringland as she launches her new novel The Seven Skins of Esther Wilding, published by HarperCollins.

Bookings for the event are essential and can be made through Avid Reader Bookshop who are hosting the event on the night.

Venue: Queensland Multicultural Centre

Address: 102 Main Street, Kangaroo Point, QLD 4169

Date: Tuesday 4 October 2022

Time: 7:00pm - 8:00pm