literary lunch: holly ringland
saturday 19 september || 11.30am-4pm
VENUE: Safety Beach Sailing Club, 185 Marine Drive, Safety Beach
Join us for a delicious day of literary lunching as we welcome acclaimed best selling author, Holly Ringland. Enjoy the stunning bay vistas from the Safety Beach Sailing club, as Holly talks about her new book, The World Beneath Her Feet, with fellow author, Irma Gold.
Ticket includes the presentation, a drink on arrival, two-course meal, and a copy of the new book.
Please be aware if you are attending with a friend or as a group, that tickets are booked by seat and table. All guest names and dietary requirements must be provided at time of booking. If you wish to be seated with someone, we strongly advise booking in a single booking to avoid disappointment. No seating adjustments will be possible once bookings have been completed. If you have no dietary requirements, please select ‘none’ as this is a mandatory booking field. For any questions, please contact us by phone or email prior to booking.
TICKETS $120 | BOOKINGS ESSENTIAL
From the author of The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart and The Seven Skins of Esther Wilding comes a luminous novel about memory, belonging and the loves and landscapes that make us.
With Ringland’s signature lyrical prose, evocative depictions of the natural world and her ability to layer humour and darkness, The World Beneath Her Feet is an immersive and absorbing novel which blends Ringland’s love of nature, music and art with her deep affection for Australian landscapes. In many ways, this is Ringland’s most personal novel yet.
Ringland said: ‘The World Beneath Her Feet is a novel from the core of my heart, mirroring many things I’ve been contemplating in the last few years: the parts of ourselves we bury in order to survive, the unresolved past that can shape the rest of our lives, and the people and places that call us home. I hope Maggie Byrd’s journey reminds readers that even after heartbreak, guilt and years of silence, it is still possible – no matter how unlikely – to find unexpected treasure in what we’ve left behind, if we have the courage to unearth it and allow it to enrich who we’ve become.’
When the novel opens, Maggie Byrd is in her late thirties and living a charmed life in London. She works with fossils and gems at the Natural History Museum and shares a home with the two people she loves most: her best friend, Harriet, and her partner, Joe. However, beneath this carefully constructed façade lies a past Maggie buried deep inside herself and resolved never to unearth: the story of a guilt-ridden, heartbroken girl who left Australia in her early twenties and swore never to return. When she learns that she’s inherited her beloved uncle’s rewilded land in a lush valley of southeast Queensland, Maggie’s London life begins to fracture…
The World Beneath Her Feet
Available 1 September 2026
‘It will never be like this again.’
She looked up. He held her eye.
‘You’ll never love anyone the way you do when you’re sixteen.’
In her late thirties, Maggie Byrd lives a charmed life in London. She works with fossils and gems at the Natural History Museum and shares a home with the two people she loves most: her best friend, Harriet, and her partner, Joe. However, beneath this carefully constructed façade lies a past Maggie buried deep inside herself and resolved never to unearth: the story of a guilt-ridden, heartbroken girl who left Australia in her early twenties and swore never to return. But when she learns that she’s inherited her beloved uncle’s rewilded land in a lush valley of southeast Queensland, Maggie’s London life begins to fracture.
In the nineties, this wild, vivid place shaped Maggie when she was an angry, lost teenager. It was her home and sanctuary, where she experienced the intoxicating powers and limitations of friendship, first love, desire and loyalty – until she betrayed everyone she loved there and fled. When the same land that Maggie turned her back on comes into her care, she is forced to face what we all cannot bury, abandon or forget.
From the international bestselling author of The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart and The Seven Skins of Esther Wilding comes a luminous, deeply emotional and utterly absorbing novel about belonging, memory and the loves and landscapes that make us – and what it takes to come home to ourselves and each other. The World Beneath Her Feet is immersive Australian storytelling at its finest.
about the author
Holly Ringland is a writer, storyteller and TV presenter whose books have sold over 600,000 copies globally and been published in 30 international territories.
Ringland’s 2018 debut novel, The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart, won the Australian Book Industry Award General Fiction Book of the Year and was adapted into a smash-hit seven-part TV series starring Sigourney Weaver.
In 2021, Holly co-hosted an eight episode ABC TV series, Back to Nature, with Aaron Pedersen.
After living between Australia and the UK for ten years, Holly has been based in the Yugambeh/Bundjalung regions of southeast Queensland since 2020, where she wrote her second novel, The Seven Skins of Esther Wilding, in her ‘office’, a vintage caravan named Frenchie. Upon publication, The Seven Skins of Esther Wilding became an instant national bestseller.
In 2023, Holly published her first non-fiction book, the national bestseller, The House That Joy Built, about the essential power of creativity, something she continues to write about in her beloved and bestselling Substack, The Joy Rise.
about the moderator
Irma Gold is an award-winning Australian author, editor, and podcaster based in Naarm/Melbourne. She is widely recognized for her contemporary fiction, short stories, and children’s books, which have been published internationally.
Irma’s literary career and professional background span several notable achievements: She is the author of the acclaimed novels The Breaking (2021) and Shift (2025). Her debut short fiction collection, Two Steps Forward, was selected from over 450 manuscripts and garnered multiple award nominations. She has also written several picture books, including Megumi and the Bear and Come Home, Bigibila (co-written with Kamilaroi man Corey Tutt).
Alongside her writing, Irma works as a full-time freelance book editor and previously convened the editing degree at the University of Canberra for a decade. She also founded and co-hosts the writing podcast Secrets from the Green Room with fellow author, Karen Viggers.
