Author talk: Anna Johnston

Event Type: Author talks and book launches,Free Suburb: Victoria Point Age range: Young adults (18-30),Adults (30+),Seniors If you loved The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife , you won’t want to miss Anna Johnston’s humour-filled follow-up to her heartwarming bestseller. Have a cuppa while you enjoy Anna’s talk, hear about her experiences working in an aged care facility and how she translates her lived experience with humor and pathos. Stick around for book sales and author signings. Free event. Bookings required. Reserve your copy About the book: From the bestselling author of The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife (recently optioned by Netflix), When Lemons Give You Life is a sharply funny, deeply moving novel about food, family and rediscovering joy when life has lost its flavour. Retired Michelin-star chef Griff Barlow has lost his appetite for life. Widowed, grieving and living in an aged care facility where beige slop passes for food, Griff is done – with guilt, with loneliness and with the lie that made headlines when he was diagnosed with dementia. Planning one final act, Griff breaks into the nursing home kitchen to cook one last lemon tart. But the simple act of cooking awakens a long-forgotten joy and soon he’s restoring flavour, dignity and delight to his fellow residents. Meanwhile, his estranged sister, Lisa, is grappling with a late-in-life ADHD diagnosis, an unexpected romance and a frightening health reality of her own. As secrets simmer and second chances collide, both siblings are forced to confront what it really means to choose life. Drawing on Anna Johnston’s experience working in aged care, the novel offers a rare and compassionate perspective on how people diagnosed with dementia are often dismissed, underestimated and quietly erased. By telling the story through the eyes of a man who carries the diagnosis yet remains fully lucid, the book invites readers to experience, from the inside, what it feels like to be unseen. About the author: Anna Johnston is a former baby, aspiring octogenarian and Australian author with a love for the heartfelt and hilarious. She grew up in country Victoria before moving to Melbourne where she lives with her husband and daughters. Anna followed her heart into her grandfather’s nursing home where she became the social support coordinator, taking great delight in shaking up the usual program. When injury left her unable to continue working in aged care, she began to write about it, channeling her love for older people onto the page.