After sadly losing her father to cancer at nine years old, Mistie Dal Molin turned to her journal.
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She wrote about her father as well as letters to him.
The loss of her father later inspired her to take up a role managing a funeral home, but as she had her own children, Mistie realised the resources for helping kids deal with grief were lacking.
"My boys obviously never got to meet their grandfather, but they always had questions," she said.
So, Mistie turned back to her days of journaling and wrote a story titled Rainbows from Poppy.
The children's book, which began as a family project, was bought by numerous funeral directors.
"There weren't many books out there on grief, and viewings, and dealing with cancer and things like that," she said.
"I felt like it was kind of a niche in the market and I could be helpful, especially having taken so many children into viewings."
Mistie said writing about death was a complex topic due to the many religious and cultural beliefs that exist. In her book, she focused on her family's experience and avoided making any religious references.
"There's a little note in the back of my book that says everyone's experience is different and whatever they're going through is ok," she said.
The book became so popular that the Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson, shared it on her YouTube channel.
"When Fergie shared it, it ended up being viewed about 41,000 times," Mistie said.
As the book was bought by more and more funeral homes, Mistie, working alongside a Canberra primary school teacher, developed free resources for children to write their own messages to and about deceased loved ones. She currently has them available on her website.
"It just kind of encourages kids to have those difficult conversations that a lot of parents aren't really sure how to navigate," she said.
A couple years on, Mistie is working as a public servant but still vivaciously writing.
She is just about to release the first book of a series titled Little Bear's Big World on October 22.
She will be donating copies to the Queanbeyan-Palerang Regional Libraries and the Goulburn Mulwaree Library.
"I have kept writing and I've just started this new little series of early readers because my youngest son is two years old and he's not really a reader yet," she said.
"So they're really short, sharp, quick bedtime stories to keep him interested."
Mistie's dedication to writing has rubbed off on her eldest son who is a keen reader. Along with his mum, they submitted stories to Anthology Angels' 2022 anthology titled It's a Kind of Magic. Mistie was also featured in the previous anthology in 2021 titled Once Upon a Whoops.
"Over the last sort of four or five years I've been going to the Australian Writers Centre to do different courses and try and get better at self-editing and learn to self-publish," she said.
"The nicest part of the whole process has been watching my eight-year-old because he sees me on the computer and he hears me on Zoom meetings and he's listening all the time.
"He took [the anthology] really seriously and he wrote a few things and asked me to help him rhyme it and when he was happy with it he submitted it, and when they accepted it, he was just beside himself."
Mistie said featuring in anthologies was a great way to enter creative writing due to the competitiveness of the Australian market.
While Mistie's recent books have been more lighthearted she hopes to delve into topics including divorce, substance abuse and depression in the future.
"Something a little bit different so it's not always that standard mum and dad in a happy household because so many aren't," she said.
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