Fernanda Dahlstrom – The Framing

MONDAY 18 MAY 2026 | INSTORE EVENT

6.00pm for a 6.30pm start | 60 mins

Join us for a conversation between Debbie Kilroy and Fernanda Dahlstrom about The Framing.

Free for members of Sisters Inside – email events@avidreader to book for members.

ABOUT THE BOOK

A memoir of love, betrayal and the justice system

Mum handed me some papers. ‘Here’s the brief of evidence if you want to read it.’
Brief of evidence?This was a surprise.
I retreated to the study to peruse it. Two bank tellers gave statements describing the person who had completed a fraudulent transaction. Blonde, overweight, in her twenties. My mother was forty-five, slim, and was sometimes asked if she was Greek or Italian.
Another witness statement, equally inconclusive. A receipt for payment for three CDs and a bunch of other random documents.
Those cops had just collected bits of paper and called it evidence. Any jury would be able to see this did not prove anything.

When Fernanda Dahlstrom was eight, her mother went to jail and their idyllic life in rural Victoria was shattered. Now a young lawyer in Darwin, Fernanda tells her new partner about her chaotic past and her determination to show the world how her mother was framed. The Framing explores the complexities of trust and betrayal in family relationships, through a searing study of identity and justice.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Fernanda Dahlstrom was born in Melbourne and has made homes in Darwin and Brisbane. She practised law for eight years, in the Northern Territory and Queensland. The Framing manuscript was shortlisted for the Glendower Award for an Emerging Queensland Writer in 2023 and was highly commended in the Next Chapter 2024.

Dahlstrom’s work has appeared in Sydney Review of Books, Kill Your Darlings, Overland Literary Journal, Mascara Literary Review, Art Guide Australia and The Guardian. She is currently a PhD candidate at Queensland University of Technology.