Sheryle Bagwell: Letter from Provence

Join author Sheryle Bagwell in conversation with Helen Pitt, to discuss her book Letter From Provence.

WHEN: Wednesday, 6th May 2026, at Gertrude & Alice Cafe Bookstore. Please arrive when doors open at 6:45pm for a 7pm start. The event concludes at 8:30pm.

TICKETS: 

Admission + Book: $55.00 (excluding external fees), includes admission for one, a copy of Letter From Provence (RRP: $34.99), a glass of wine and nibbles upon arrival.

Admission: $25.00 (excluding external fees), includes admission for one and a glass of wine and nibbles upon arrival.

Two women, two centuries, and a village house in France.

The book:
After buying an ancient stone house in Provence, Australian journalist Sheryle Bagwell finds in her attic an old edition of selected letters by the seventeenth-century French noblewoman Madame de Sévigné, who died, she discovers, in the grand chateau down the road. So begins Sheryle's new life in southern France as she deals with an ageing house, a combative neighbour and a foreign language—all infused with her reading of the glittering yet doomed world of Louis XIV's France.

Madame de Sévigné wrote hundreds of letters from Paris and Brittany to her beloved daughter who had moved to the chateau in Provence after marrying a count. Her heartfelt, yet witty, correspondence has been hailed down the centuries by the likes of Marcel Proust and Virginia Woolf.

Sheryle soon, too, falls under Madame de Sévigné's spell; she thinks of her as an early blogger. But above all, the noblewoman's ardent letters to her daughter prompt Sheryle to reflect on the life of her own long-dead mother, whose thwarted dreams of one day travelling to France she is now fulfilling.

Australian journalist Sheryle Bagwell's move to Provence is enlivened by the discovery of a book of seventeenth-century letters.

About the Author:

Sheryle Bagwell is an award-winning journalist and broadcaster. She has lived and worked in Australia and Europe for more than thirty years and is the author of My French Connection (HarperCollins, 2006). Sheryle and her husband now divide their time between Sydney and their village house in Provence.

About the Host:

Helen Pitt is an award-winning journalist and author. Her first book, The House: The dramatic story of the Sydney Opera House and the people who made it, won the 2018 Walkley Book Award. She has over four decades of experience in the media, reporting from three different continents (Australia, Europe and the United States). She has worked as the Sydney Morning Herald's opinion editor, Spectrum deputy editor and as a staff news and feature writer there, and at The Bulletin, HQ magazine and New York Times Digital. This is her second book.

About Gertrude & Alice Cafe Bookstore

Rated as one of the top 10 bookstores in the world by National Geographic, Gertrude & Alice Cafe Bookstore is an oasis for writers, readers, and coffee lovers. Books overflow from the shelves of their store, featuring a mix of new, second-hand, antiquarian and rare books. Stay a while & enjoy some homemade chai, and amazing coffee, and unearth a book treasure or two. Read more about the bookstore's story here, and about the real Gertrude & Alice here.