Ticketyboo: An Illustrated Story of Learning to Love Dementia

By Renée Brack

Ticketyboo is a deeply personal story of living with a loved one’s Alzheimer’s. Told with gentle humour & handy hints for interacting with dementia, it finds joyful fun in precious moments of connection. Photos & artworks make it an easy read for adults & young people, worldwide. It’s also a great companion to the documentary Ticketyboo: a Secret in Plain Sight (2022) written & director by the author, Renée Brack. In its first month of festival release, the film earned 10 Official Selection laurels, Special Mentions, Finalist status and 2 Best Documentary wins with more to come.

A graduate of UTS, Australia with a Master of Creative Arts (documentary and Virtual Reality) and a Bachelor of Arts, Macquarie University (screen and media studies, international politics) Renée is an acclaimed storyteller, journalist, writer and screen professional with 20+ years experience in film, TV, print and digital.

Recently, she pioneered research into a scripting template for immersive content (VR, CVR, 360) originated by filmmaker Elia Petridis of Fever Content, LA. She is also an award-winning filmmaker - writing, producing and directing short films plus plays produced in the world’s largest short play festival, Short+Sweet; and scripted the award-winning short thriller Red Handed which screened in many international film festivals with multiple award wins.

Right now, her social impact feature documentary Ticketyboo: a Secret in Plain Sight (2022) she wrote, directed and co-produced is on the international film festival circuit winning festival laurels and awards. The premiere at the Melbourne Documentary Film Festival was sold out with a standing ovation. It's an uplifting, confronting, and deeply personal story to help people engage with dementia. Her book called Ticketyboo – an Illustrated Story of Learning to Love Dementia also released in 2022 and is a companion to the film. Ticketyboo is also the principal case study for her PhD.

IShe finds great joy in giving back to the filmmaking community by nurturing the next wave of screen professionals as a lecturer, EP, mentor and creative consultant on a wide range of award-winning films, documentary and web series, overseeing production from concept to transmission.

She also has a development slate of eclectic, mostly female-centric stories for screen, audio / podcasts and print known by her as “the dirty dozen I have to do before I die”.

A common response to her writing is, “I’ve never looked at it that way before” – testament to her creative and fresh approach to the stories she crafts.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Renée Brack
• Release date: Sep 13, 2022
• ISBN: 9780646864129

Renée Brack

Ticketyboo is a deeply personal story of living with a loved one’s Alzheimer’s. Told with gentle humour & handy hints for interacting with dementia, it finds joyful fun in precious moments of connection. Photos & artworks make it an easy read for adults & young people, worldwide. It’s also a great companion to the documentary Ticketyboo: a Secret in Plain Sight (2022) written & director by the author, Renée Brack. In its first month of festival release, the film earned 10 Official Selection laurels, Special Mentions, Finalist status and 2 Best Documentary wins with more to come.A graduate of UTS, Australia with a Master of Creative Arts (documentary and Virtual Reality) and a Bachelor of Arts, Macquarie University (screen and media studies, international politics) Renée is an acclaimed storyteller, journalist, writer and screen professional with 20+ years experience in film, TV, print and digital.Recently, she pioneered research into a scripting template for immersive content (VR, CVR, 360) originated by filmmaker Elia Petridis of Fever Content, LA. She is also an award-winning filmmaker - writing, producing and directing short films plus plays produced in the world’s largest short play festival, Short+Sweet; and scripted the award-winning short thriller Red Handed which screened in many international film festivals with multiple award wins.Right now, her social impact feature documentary Ticketyboo: a Secret in Plain Sight (2022) she wrote, directed and co-produced is on the international film festival circuit winning festival laurels and awards. The premiere at the Melbourne Documentary Film Festival was sold out with a standing ovation. It's an uplifting, confronting, and deeply personal story to help people engage with dementia. Her book called Ticketyboo – an Illustrated Story of Learning to Love Dementia also released in 2022 and is a companion to the film. Ticketyboo is also the principal case study for her PhD.She finds great joy in giving back to the filmmaking community by nurturing the next wave of screen professionals as a lecturer, EP, mentor and creative consultant on a wide range of award-winning films, documentary and web series, overseeing production from concept to transmission.She also has a development slate of eclectic, mostly female-centric stories for screen, audio / podcasts and print known by her as “the dirty dozen I have to do before I die”.A common response to her writing is, “I’ve never looked at it that way before” – testament to her creative and fresh approach to the stories she crafts.

Book preview

Introduction

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Exhibition 22 September 2020 Thom Brack’s Art – A Retrospective

The aim of this book is to invite you into the posthumous exhibition of Thom Brack’s art. He was self-taught with no formal training but as a child, showed talent. He painted, drew and sketched all his life right up until he died.

I’m also sharing real life moments of being with Dad when dementia joined our family. He, Thom, and my mum, Elaine, married young then lived together for the rest of their lives until the end of his. As his primary carer, Mum has her own experience of Dad’s dementia. My brother Chris also has his own stories. And while our shared sense of humour helped us through moments of feeling helpless and hopeless, this book is my own story of coping — and not.

The book also shares honest reflections about what I got wrong by avoiding Dad’s dementia and exploring better ways to connect after he died. I left it too late to do what I should have done while he was alive. So instead of my grief around his death subsiding over time, it compounded with regret and became worse. My life slowly imploded. My relationship ended and I didn’t date again. I got stuck in life and didn’t know how to move on from guilt about avoiding Dad because of dementia. I physically ache when I think of him feeling isolated and alone. He always loved me and instead of getting even closer when dementia joined us, I allowed it to drive us apart.

I can’t go back in time with Dad, but I can share with you the things I got wrong and how I learned to do them better. Sometimes, I accidently got it right and we had beautiful connections that dementia didn’t destroy. But those were too few and far between.

grief is love with nowhere to go

So I hope my little stories will help you find joy, humour, compassion and kindness in your relationship with a loved one living with a diagnosis. May you enjoy those precious moments while your loved one is still alive and with you.

My personal family photos are a bit blurred and wonky. The order of thoughts in this book is a little muddled, jumping around in time and realities, just like dementia can do. So if it seems like it’s all over the place, it’s not you, it’s me and it is intentional. It’s designed so you can jump in or out of any page and come back to it