DIANNE YARWOOD
A NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCE INSPIRED THE WRITER TO FOLLOW HER DREAM
Dianne Yarwood had been battling a mystery illness for about a year when there came a day when she knew she was about to die. And she would have, were it not for the keen diagnosis of an emergency doctor who recognised she had the autoimmune disorder Addison’s disease and needed immediate attention. Her recovery was swift, although she requires ongoing treatment to manage the disease, and she emerged from the experience with her teenage dream to write a novel reignited. Twenty years later, her debut novel The Wakes has hit shelves. “I feel like I’ve woken up in someone else’s life,” the former chartered accountant and inspirational 61-year-old tells WHO. “Two things happened as a result of that neardeath experience. I became keenly aware of my mortality. And it gave me courage ... to think, ‘What have I got to lose?’”While there is a lot of death in The Wakes – two of the main characters run a funeral catering business – this heartfelt and uplifting book is essentially about living. “I came very close to establishing a funeral catering business with two girlfriends. As a business it’s quirky, deeply human and fundamentally about nourishing people when they’re sad. It works perfectly in The Wakes, allowing the reader to see death from an ordinary, everyday and sometimes quite funny viewpoint.”Yarwood says that she worked on The Wakes when she found the time, tting it in around raising three children and her obsession with cooking. For her second novel, which is underway, she’s prioritising writing and hopes to have it completed within a year. (Out now)