What happens when you discover, in the attic of your newly purchased stone house in Provence, a tattered volume of letters by one of France’s most celebrated writers? Adding to your surprise is learning the author died in the grand Renaissance château at the end of your street.
In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, award-winning journalist and broadcaster Sheryle Bagwell reveals that this serendipitous discovery was the catalyst for crafting Letter from Provence: Two Women, Two Centuries, and a Village House in France. A hybrid of literary biography, memoir, history and travel writing, Letter from Provence weaves together two women’s lives, two centuries and two daughters separated from their mothers.
Sheryle, aged 4, with her mother Judith on their only ‘overseas’ trip together.
On board the SS Arcadia, sailing from Sydney to Melbourne.
Letter from Provence is a love letter to the 17th-century noblewoman Madame de Sévigné and to Sheryle’s mother Judith Anne Townsend, whose early death thwarted her lifelong dream of visiting France. Madame de Sévigné was a celebrated seventeenth-century French noblewoman who wrote hundreds of witty, gossipy letters to her daughter. These letters gave the world an intimate window into the glittering, doomed court of Louis XIV at a time before newspapers or cameras existed. Madame de Sévigné became Sheryle’s bridge across time, the link that connected the various strands of the story.
The 17th century French writer Madame de Sévigné (1626-1696).
Portrait by Claude Lefèbvre.
Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
Sheryle also describes her own journey: from a troubled working-class childhood in Sydney’s western suburbs scarred by domestic violence, to a life spent half the year in the very region where Madame de Sévigné’s daughter once lived in her grand Renaissance château.
Letters Reveal the Writer’s Thinking at a Moment in Time
What she discovered, as the book took shape, was that her mother and Madame de Sévigné had surprising things in common: both were feisty, strong-willed women with strong opinions about their daughters’ paths; both died without their daughters beside them. ‘I realised these women had a bit in common’, she says, ‘and that’s when I thought I’d like to weave those two stories together’.
Lavender Field in Provence
Andyblind, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
The result is a book with a deeply personal architecture. As a long-form journalist, Sheryle was accustomed to keeping herself out of the story. ‘I never used the pronoun I’, she reveals. ‘I had to take a writing course to learn how to write about feelings rather than just facts.’ The biographical strand gave her journalism skills a natural home; the memoir gave her the courage to reckon with her past.
Towards the end of the book, in an inspired structural move, Sheryle imagines her mother and Madame de Sévigné meeting. ‘I thought it was natural that these two women would have to meet’, she says simply. Letter from Provence closes with the letter Sheryle didn’t write to her mother while she was alive. It was her first and only letter to her, written from Provence, 300 years after the letters that inspired it.
Praise for Letter from Provence
Storytelling, of the real reach-back-to-childhood-and-forward-to-maturity sort, is in vital demand in our world of bedlam. Sheryle has provided a terrific example. She weaves a great deal of description, insight, sadness, and memory into her tale of Australia and France, offering me regular surprises: about her own life, about early postal services (absolutely who knew?) and about enduring love. I found it replete with hope.
Geraldine Doogue
ABC
The hopes and dreams passed between mothers and daughters. A beautiful book, compulsively readable.
Susan Johnson
Author of Aphrodite’s Breath
Letter from Provence Media Coverage:
20 March 2026.
7 May 2026.
Mum sacrificed everything for us. After she died at 41, I honoured her lifelong wish.
Sydney Morning Herald: SUNDAY LIFE Magazine
8 March 2026.
How to spend 6 months in Provence every year
Australian Financial Review
26 February 2026.
Madame de Sévigné - the original blogger
Allen & Unwin Blog.
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.
Learn More About Sheryle Bagwell: www.sherylebagwell.com