Helen Brown’s captivating story telling has created an international phenomenon, a family life narrative on the healing power of cats which leavens grief with comedy.

Hi there, I’m your host Jenny Wheeler and today Helen talks about the journey which has seen her books published in 18 countries, and explains how a cat became a metaphor for life.

Six things you’ll learn from this Joys of Binge Reading episode:

How Helen migrated from journalism to fiction

The tragedy that brought her close to her readers

What her readers have taught her

How a mini 'mid life crisis' led to an international best seller

Why her next project is a children's story

The part she'd like to see Chris Hemsworth play.

Where to find Helen Brown: 

Website: https://www.helenbrown.com.au/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Helen.Brown.International.Author

Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/helenbrownauthor/

What follows is a "near as" transcript of our conversation, not word for word but pretty close to it, with links to important mentions.

Jenny: But now, here’s Helen. .  Hello there Helen and welcome to the show, it’s great to have you with us.

Helen: It's a pleasure to be here Jenny.

Helen Brown international best selling author

Jenny: I usually start by asking the  “Once Upon A Time” question - how did you come to write fiction?  But I know in your case your work has always had a very strong element of personal memoir.   And you've developed these books into a unique series which marries story telling with memoir...  Can you tell us a little about of how that happened?

Helen: Well, I think it goes back to basic story telling. I started writing columns maybe forty years ago, and my readers always taught me actually what worked for them. If I wrote a column that touched them, they would write me letters back, and it was so often about something very trivial.

They guided me really towards stories they wanted to hear, and they were so often emotional stories about ordinary life that we all shared. I was writing those columns, and they were 750 words roughly for many years.

When we moved to Australia, I actually couldn't get a job over here. Nobody had heard of me, and nobody really wanted me and I didn't have the confidence or something. So I thought - well, I kind of know what touches readers; maybe I'll have a go at spinning out to a larger concept.

I knew from experience that talking about the loss of my son and the way that our cat had helped us; those stories really got big reactions from readers. So I thought - and it was actually at the same time- the cat that had helped us when Sam died - that cat died itself at the age of nearly 24. Phil, my second husband was burying the cat under the Daphne bush in the garden. And Rob, who was Sam's younger brother, and had seen him run over back in 1983, said "there goes the last connection with Sam". I thought - maybe the story hasn't finished being told. I need to tell the story in full.

It was a big exercise and I really wasn't sure if it was working. Every publisher that I sent the idea to assured me that is wasn't working! And then I tried several agents who were also not at all impressed. One of them said, "you know, nobody wants to read a book in which a child dies". So I thought; OK...who are these people who read books?

In real life, children die, and in real life when my child was run over in 1983, the best consolation I got was from other parents who had lost children. They wrote to me, and you know I didn't know anyone who had lost a child. But because of writing about it in my column, they approached me with these wonderful letters and cards which were the best grief counselling that was available in...