This practice-led research with poetics examines, though creative practice, themes of doubt, faith and miracles in a Mormon context. A Song for Issy Bradley (Hutchinson, 2014) is a product of practice-based research and research for form and content. The novel describes the effects of a sudden bereavement on the Bradleys, a Mormon family. The third person narrative moves between the perspectives of each family member as they grieve and re-examine long-held beliefs, amid the comfort and confinement of their religious community. The poetics investigates some of the themes that surfaced during the practice-led research, including the absence of parenthood and domesticity from traditional happily-ever-after endings, the use of autobiography as a feminist resource and the presence of domestic dramas in non-fiction writing as a matter of intersection rather than one of invasion. The poetics discusses the derogatory use of the word ‘domestic’ when referencing fiction written by women and the ‘problem’ of motherhood for female writers. These issues are explored with reference to fiction by Helen Simpson, Carol Shields, Tillie Olsen, Tessa Hadley, Lionel Shriver and Margaret Forster. This is followed by a discussion of the narrative strategies in Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible, Ali Smith’s The Accidental and Alice Munro’s short stories, with reference to the narrative strategies employed in A Song for Issy Bradley. And finally, the poetics considers silences surrounding women’s life experiences and the illuminating properties of ‘domestic’ fiction and non-fiction.