The House that Joy Built: Holly Ringland in-conversation

The House that Joy Built is about how to give ourselves permission to be creative. It explores two big forces: the fear that can block our creativity, and the permission we can meet that fear with - to not just create, but to revel in the life-changing wonder and joy of doing so. It offers a jump-start for the nervous heart of anyone whose desire to create is overruled by fear.

It is a book for those people who yearn to write, as well as people who find their creativity elsewhere: gardeners, carpenters, sculptors, jewellery-makers, florists, songwriters, dancers, cooks, painters... anyone who wants to make something but doesn't because they're afraid. Afraid of feeling vulnerable, of criticism and judgement from others, of not being good enough, of not having enough, of having 'bad' ideas, of being too much.

It is for everyone who has ever felt stuck creatively, for those who don't know how to begin, for those who feel they have so much welling up inside and are just trying to find a way into themselves. This book is an open-hearted clarion call to experience the joy and freedom of creating.

Holly Ringland is the author of the international bestseller The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart, which has been translated into thirty languages and adapted into a global seven-part TV series starring Sigourney Weaver and produced by Amazon Prime Video and Made Up Stories. In 2019, The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart won the Australian Book Industry Award General Fiction Book of the Year. In 2021, Holly co-hosted an eight-episode ABC TV series, Back to Nature, with Aaron Pedersen. After living between Australia and the UK for ten years, Holly has been based in the Yugambeh region of southeast Queensland since 2020, where she wrote The Seven Skins of Esther Wilding in her 'office', a vintage caravan named Frenchie. Upon publication, The Seven Skins of Esther Wilding became an instant national bestseller, and it was named 2022 Book of the Year by Booktopia.

Michaela Kalowski is an interviewer, moderator and curator for writers and ideas festivals. Highlight interviews include Margaret Atwood, David Mitchell, Michelle de Kretser, Stan Grant and Etgar Keret. She's the curator of ABC RN's on-air writers festival, Big Weekend of Books, now in its 4th year. She hosts a monthly books conversation event for Petersham Bowling Club in Sydney. Michaela has conducted radio interviews for ABC RN's The Music Show, Big Ideas and The Bookshelf, ABC Classic and has presented programs across ABC radio.