Bestseller Pip - 'MY SEARCH FOR THE GOOD LIFE'

While failing as a farmer, the Aussie author discovered her true calling

- Nicky Pellegrino

Author Pip Williams is a huge success. She is the first Australian ever to have a novel selected for Reese Witherspoon’s book club. And her bestselling debut, The Dictionary of Lost Words, has been enjoyed by readers all around the world. Yet growing up, Pip struggled with dyslexia.

“I was slow to learn and I’m still a very, very slow reader,” admits Pip, 54, who now writes full-time. “I’ve always used writing as a way of expressing myself, but when I was young that writing was very flawed and often incomprehensible. My parents were amazing. They didn’t focus too much on the errors and the poor handwriting, instead they focused on what I was trying to say. That meant I was never scared of writing.”

Pip says people with dyslexia are often lateral thinkers and creative problem solvers, both useful skills for a storyteller. With her parents’ encouragement and the help of teachers, her reading and writing improved.

Still, her pathway to becoming a novelist has been a meandering one. It all started when Pip, who had carved out a career as an academic, decided to move with her family from their home in Sydney to five acres in the Adelaide Hills.

“We were full of good intentions,” she recalls. “We were going to grow our own food and have a permaculture garden, and hopefully one day live off the land. But we were useless at it, to be honest.”