Jackie's Books

I am passionate about empowering people to live a spiritual life with or without religion. I offer funeral celebrancy: farewells that are personalised, authentic and meaningful to you and your loved ones.

I am also a pastoral care practitioner, offering spiritual care for people nearing the end-of-life. I live on Wodi Wodi country, which is about an hour and a half south of Sydney on the east coast of Australia, with my husband and daughter.

I am also a writer, with a PhD in creative writing from the University of New South Wales.

My latest book is The Outrageous Good Fortune of Living (HarperCollins/ABC Books), available from 30 June 2026. It’s all about how to live a spiritual life, without religion. You can find out more and preorder here.

My auto-fiction novel The Eulogy was released on 1 June 2022 by Hardie Grant Books. It won the 2023 NSW Premier’s Literary Multicultural Award and was shortlisted for the 2023 NSW Premier’s Literary Award for New Writing. The manuscript was shortlisted for the 2018 KYD Unpublished Manuscript Award (you can buy it here).

I write pretty regularly for The Guardian on the topic of spirituality and meaning. I have also written for the Sydney Morning Herald, Artshub, Screenhub, Artlink, Online Opinion, Arts Professional UK, Cultural Trends, Australian Journal of Human Rights, and have contributed to publications on storytelling, love, death and dying.

I spent a long time finding my version of spirituality. My creed these days is much shorter and simpler than the one I used to recite as a child. Nowadays it goes like this:

I believe I can lead a spiritual and meaningful life, without religion.

I believe that you can, too.