Opening Doorways: Speaking at the 2025 Riverina Readers Festival

On July 12, I’ll be speaking at the 2025 Riverina Readers Festival, where this year’s theme is Opening Doorways. The theme, inspired by The Lost Story, we’ll embark on magical adventures through words. But I’ll be inviting us to think about doorways and words differently. This theme resonates deeply with me—books that gently invite us to see differently, opening us to other perspectives and deeper ways of being.

For millennia, stories have been more than just entertainment. They’ve carried words of wisdom—teaching us how to live, how to hope and how to heal, from one generation to the next.

Poet David Whyte beautifully expresses this sentiment, saying, “Only a few [written words] are able to speak something universal yet personal and distinct at the same time; to create a door through which others can walk through what previously seemed unobtainable realms, in the passage of a few short lines.”

I seek out books and poems that extend this invitation. They aren't just escapes; they encourage us to shift the lens through which we’ve learned to view our reality and to expand our sense of what might be possible, to see our lives through a new lens. These stories act as tools, encouraging us to pause and wonder: ‘What if we could look at this in a different way?’

Books like these gently hold up an invitation, asking us to explore and reflect. I can’t wait to share this journey with you at the festival, and I look forward to our conversations about how books can transform our understanding of ourselves and our world.

The threshold

Crossing thresholds is rarely easy.

Mythologist Joseph Campbell speaks of Threshold Guardians—those forces that arise when we stand on the edge of change. Often, they’re not dragons or villains. Sometimes, they’re quieter, more familiar: fear of change, self-doubt, the whisper that says, You’re not ready.

These guardians act as gatekeepers (or perhaps bouncers at the door granting or denying entry), testing our readiness, asking, ‘Are you willing to let go of what no longer serves you?’

In bibliotherapy, I see this time and again. Books reveal the stories we’ve been living—often unconsciously—often shaped by the need to belong or meet unrealistic expectations —society's, others, and our own. We learn to perform, to please, to protect. And in doing so, we may lose touch with how we truly feel.

But stories can also help us find our way back.

They illuminate patterns.

They challenge assumptions.

They open new possibilities.

Sometimes, through another’s voice, we find the words for what we’ve long held quietly inside.

And this, to me, is the heart of bibliotherapy:

It’s not simply about reading.

It’s about offering a new way to see—and be seen.

Bouncing forward through the doorway

My own path to heart-centred bibliotherapy has been shaped by many thresholds. It’s taken me a great deal of courage to remain true to this path, especially in a world that often prizes speed over stillness and values certainty above curiosity.

I’ve had to meet my own Threshold Guardians: perfectionism, fear of being misunderstood, the discomfort of walking an unconventional path. What moves me forward is not pushing harder but softening. Staying open, trusting the quiet magic of books and the kind of conversations that don’t seek to fix, but simply to bear witness.

Through this experience, I’ve come to realise that resilience isn’t about hardening; it’s about remaining soft and present—allowing life to flow through us, rather than pushing against it. Bibliotherapy invites us to explore this nuanced kind of resilience. It suggests that we don’t just 'bounce back' but instead 'bounce forward,' not retreating to what was, but stepping bravely into who we are still becoming.

So, with curiosity and from the stillness within, I invite you to reflect on your own journey:

What stories are shaping your life in this moment?

What doorways are calling you softly?

And which Threshold Guardian must you meet to take the next step?

Perhaps, within the pages of a well-chosen book, you’ll find that opening you’ve been seeking. And maybe, just maybe, you will find the door isn’t locked at all—it’s simply waiting for you to turn the handle and step through.