Hannah Richell on Writing Memoir, Grief, and An Ocean and a Day

Join host and author Pamela Cook as she  interviews author Hannah Richell about her memoir An Ocean and a Day, which explores the sudden death of her husband Matt in a surfing accident at Tamarama Beach in 2014 and the long journey of grief that followed.

Richell discusses journaling as a survival tool, shaping years of writing into a memoir, and choosing a circular, tidal structure that moves between past and present to show what was lost and reflect how grief is experienced. She shares key influences and also talks about narrating the audiobook herself, deciding what to include about her children, and how touring and reader responses have been unexpectedly uplifting.

00:00 Level Up Writing Courses

01:39 Episode Updates and Memoir Intro

05:15 Memoir Overview and Loss

08:38 Beach Bookends and Ending

13:22 Writing Grief Into Words

17:30 Tidal Timeline Structure

24:02 Journaling to Memoir Draft2

9:38 Visitation Dream Story

32:56 Host Family Grief Reflection

36:42 Kids as Anchors

38:05 Writing Through Nights

38:42 Books That Held Me

42:34 Quoting and Permissions

44:18 Narrating the Audiobook

49:10 Shaping the Memoir

50:51 Privacy and Boundaries

56:20 Swallows and Tattoos

01:00:27 Touring and Reader Connection

01:03:39 Wrap Up and Farewell

SHOWNOTES:

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Hannah Richell

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Pamela Cook

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This episode produced by Pamela Cook for Writes4Women and recorded on unceded Dharawal land.