"Grief is an incredibly creative experience" - Author Flora Baker on self-publishing The Adult Orphan Club

Freelance Pod

Freelance writer and author Flora Baker has combined memoir and a self-help guide in her first book, The Adult Orphan Club.

Flora lost her mother at 20, and her father at 30, just a few years ago. We 'met' via the Young Orphans Whatsapp group, although thanks to lockdown we have not yet met in person.

After her mother's death, Flora went travelling for five years, and detailed her adventures on her blog, Flora the Explorer. She admits now that the travelling allowed her to postpone doing the work of grieving, as the day-to-day adventures pushed her mourning aside.

She's written the book she needed back then, one which unflinchingly, but kindly, describes the complex aspects of grief that aren't talked about enough, and so arrive as a horrible surprise for the newly bereaved.

Flora's blogging has helped build her social media presence, and it's only this week that she's written for analogue media, with a piece in The Telegraph about her book, accompanied by a suitably socially-distanced photoshoot.

Self-publishing her book was a very different task, and she describes all the work needed on top of the writing to make a non-traditionally-published book the best it can be.

The Adult Orphan Club is available for pre-order now, and on sale from Saturday 20th June.

You can find the Young Orphans on social media:

Instagram: @Young Orphans

Twitter: @YoungOrphans

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On each episode of Freelance Pod, creative guests tell host Suchandrika Chakrabarti how the internet has revolutionised their work.

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