Out Nov 2 2026

About my literary memoir

When someone you love dies, grief can arrive in forms that are difficult to understand or put into words.

This intensely personal and imaginative memoir follows Glenda after the sudden death of her partner, Patrick. It begins at the heart-wrenching moment of Patrick's death, when Glenda crash-lands on Cape Grief, shocked and emotionally shattered.

There she discovers a place with its own terrain, unpredictable weather, unfamiliar language and curious inhabitants she calls her Comrades-in-Grief. As she navigates this changing landscape, these companions give shape and voice to the often contradictory emotions, thoughts and experiences of grief.

Through personal stories, reflections, poetry, Cape Grief explores the bewildering experience of living with loss, including its unexpected moments of humour.

In sharing her journey, Glenda creates a space where others who are grieving might find comfort, recognition and a sense that their own grief has been heard. The memoir also offers insights for those seeking to understand grief and come alongside someone they love in their time of grief.

Offering no prescriptions for healing or moving on, Cape Grief is both one person's experience of learning to live with the death of a loved one and an invitation to wider conversations about grief — its many forms, the ways we make sense of it, and how we might better understand and support one another.

Ultimately, Cape Grief isn't a place we move to, but rather, a place that lives within us.

Early readers

"Cape Grief is a wonderful book, a magical mix of memoir, adventure and research…”
— Caroline van de Pol, author of Back to Broady

“The book shows us that what we need is not a flight out of Cape Grief, but comrades to help us live there.”
— Ian Parsons, advance reader

“I was left with a sense of hopefulness … that loss-grieving does not need to be moved on from but rather can be shaped as a facet of how love-loving continues.”
— Sheralyn Campbell, advance reader

"There is room for humour, anger, confusion, love and even enjoyment, without suggesting that any of those things mean Patrick is missed any less.”

“Those are the experiences that can be so difficult to explain to someone who hasn’t lived them.”

— Kirsten O’Connor
Founder, This Is Grief
Author of The Year After Kahlia and Stay

As a First Nations woman, the connections between nature, grief, comfort and guidance are palpable. The First Nations flora and fauna, with their sounds, smells and movement in the wind, communicate deep with deep. In this especially, Cape Grief has spoken to me.”

— Dr Sue Atkinson AM

Why I wrote Cape Grief

I began Cape Grief when I struggled to explain my grief to others and to myself. Over time, through my writing, I found language for my grief in the metaphors of Cape Grief, honouring it and the enduring power of love.