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• Keeping Afloat: Hannah Richell & Sophie Dumont on Rivers, Oceans & Loss

Keeping Afloat: Hannah Richell & Sophie Dumont on Rivers, Oceans & Loss

How can writing hold us up when grief pulls us under? 

Hannah Richell’s memoir, An Ocean and a Day, traces the sudden loss of her husband and the writing that helped her navigate a transformed world. Meanwhile, Sophie’s poetry collection, Sculling, explores the death of her coach and partner, weaving together an exploration of rivers, bodies, organ donation and the ways loss continues to ripple through a life. 

In conversation with Good Grief Festival Co-Director Dr Lesel Dawson, they’ll reflect on how writing can carry us through the most challenging times, offering new ways of understanding love, loss and the landscapes that shape us.

Hannah Richell – An Ocean and a Day (2026)

In 2005, Matt and Hannah Richell moved from London to Sydney, building a life together with two young children. By 2014, Matt was CEO of a publishing house and Hannah a successful novelist – then, that July, Matt died in a surfing accident on Tamarama Beach. In the aftermath, Hannah set aside the novel she had been writing and began writing purely for herself, trying to make sense of an unrecognisable world. An Ocean and a Day is her account of losing Matt: a story of grief, but also of love, family and hope.

‘An extraordinary heart-breaking – and heart-mending – memoir of the turmoil of grief and the power of love’ Julia Samuel

‘I love this book. So moving. So precise. Hannah has put her broken heart on the page so beautifully and I think it will help a lot of people’ Cathy Rentzenbrink, author of The Last Act of Love

Sophie Dumont – Sculling (2025)

In this unflinching, tender collection, poet Sophie Dumont explores her relationship with the River Avon and the losses that have shaped her life. At sixteen, she trained as a canoe coach; three years later, her coach and partner died suddenly in a road accident, and five of his organs went on to save or transform at least seven lives. Using the kayak as a metaphor for navigating loss, Sophie reflects on bodies of water, river pollution, and the growing campaign for rivers’ personhood status, tracing how a presence can reverberate even in its absence. Shortlisted for the Jerwood Prize 2026, the collection has been praised by Philip Gross for its assured, richly woven reflections on place, family and language, carried by the steady pull of personal story.

This workshop is programmed as part of Good Grief Weston. Click here to find out more.