Author: Margaret Kelly
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Naturally Speaking: Getting Dialogue Right
To write strong dialogue, focus on clear formatting, distinct character voices, purposeful lines, and subtext—using “said” as your default tag and action beats to show emotion and pacing.
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BLOOMIN’ MARVELLOUS: Joining the Wildflower Watchers in Western New South Wales 2026
There has been a lot of rain (for the western plains). Outback New South Wales is bejewelled with spring flowers. Not so western Queensland which is languishing in drought. Our three-week ‘glamping’ trip through western New South Wales and western Queensland in our campervan wasn’t planned specifically as a wildflower trip, but seeing the arid…
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Bribie Island: A Day Trip to a forgotten gem or a prequel to retirement?
If you’re planning a trip around South East Queensland, or wondering about spots to get out of Brizzie for the day, you might be wondering: is Bribie Island really worth visiting? It often gets overshadowed by bigger-name tourist traps in its vicinity, like the Sunshine Coast or Moreton Island, but this little slice of paradise…
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The Joy of Writing For Yourself (and no-one else)
In a world filled with publishing schedules, social media posts, newsletters, blogs, and endless content creation, it’s easy for writers to forget why they started writing in the first place. Deadlines, algorithms, and audience expectations can slowly turn a creative passion into another item on a to-do list. That’s why writing solely for yourself can…
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Human Writers in a Synthetic World: The persistence of the heart to write in the age of AI
What it’s like being an ageing emerging writer and writing in spite of AI (and why real writing has more value). You can probably tell that I enjoy using AI to create pictures to accompany my blog posts, because visual art creation is not my thing. If it hasn’t yet crept into your workplace, you’ve…
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Navigating Trauma in Literary Narratives
[Image: vecteezy.com] I have struggled for many years to fit my ‘novel’ to the parameters of traditional creative writing. When I was doing the Australian Writers’ Centre’s Write Your Novel course, I struggled to cram it into the paradigm (framework) we were being taught, rebelled against providing ‘Trigger Warnings’ without scooping the barefaced, confrontational horror…
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Escape to Nature: Six Highlight Parts of The Scenic Rim
Living in Ipswich, on the threshold between Brisbane and the Magnificent Scenic Rim, we are spoiled for choice when it comes to natural rainforests, gardens, walking trails, ancient volcanic mountains with views and waterfalls, and small boutique-shop towns to explore. Hubs and I are not coffee, wine, cheese and produce connoisseurs, but there are foody…
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Living the Delusion as a Writer
I have just submitted three short stories to yet another competition. This one required an entry fee for each story, so I limited myself. We hear the phrases all the time: Set realistic goals, don’t get ahead of yourself, write what you know. On a bigger scale we sometimes hear: Live The Dream. For a writer, or those who would…
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Crafting a Story Round the Lived Experience of Trauma
*BEFORE my INFORMATIONAL POST, an UPDATE on PROGRESS I ask potential readers to excuse me for taking so long to perfect my novels, but to be a publishable ‘talented’ writer, you need to do a lot of reading of books and articles and websites posted by other authors, and reflecting on lots of facets of…
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Weekend Away: Maryborough, Queensland
Photo queens Park, Maryborough. (L Kelly) There’s so much to explore, enjoy and absorb in Maryborough Qld. Less than four hours from Brisvegas, it’s a doable escape for these times of Diesel/petrol expensiveness. We were there at Easter and it was so quiet compared with other places in Qld we’ve visited at Easter. Gold and…
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Thoughts on storytelling in the age of ‘Social’ Media
This week, I used AI to generate a photo of myself in Piaget’s study. He was one of the pioneers of cognitive behaviour theory, and also an all-round messy bastard. My brain has started to look a bit like this as I learn more and more about writing.
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The Abbey Museum of Art and Archaeology, Caboolture QLD
You may, when watching the news in February, have heard about the theft of some priceless Egyptian treasures from a private museum near Brisbane. If so, like me, you may have wondered what sort of place has valuable artefacts in a situation from which they’re stealable. The ‘cat burglar’ actually had the cat carving in…
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Just musing on manuscript rejection:
Publishers are looking for certain genres to fill their quotas. They demand authors and characters who readers like. My advice (or just one piece of it), is don’t write to be liked. Write to be honest and then twist the truth about events just enough so nothing can be pinned on you. The moment you…
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Taking the Tokyo Subway
This is the statue of Hachiko, Japan’s equivalent of Scotland’s Greyfriars Bobby (photo copyright Alan Bailey). It’s at Shibuya Station in Tokyo, beside the must-see ‘Shibuya Scramble’ pedestrian crossing (best viewed from the Shibuya Sky Building), a great shopping district (a mega Don Quijote store and a huge new shopping precinct called Miyashita Park) and…
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Five Mystical Things About Rosslyn Chapel, Scotland
It added to the depth of the experience that no-one was allowed to take photos inside Rosslyn Chapel when my brother and I visited it on a cold November afternoon. It meant we could really concentrate on the breathtaking intricacy of the stonework and the overwhelming symbolism of the artwork. Outside was a different matter.…
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Four Days in Beijing
It doesn’t seem to be common knowledge that since 2024, but only until the 31st December, 2026, tourists travelling on an Australian passport can spend up to thirty days in China without a visa. We were in Beijing in early December. By surviving flights with Air China, travelling with lots of people toting rice cookers…
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The Power of Storytelling: Turning Inner Struggles into Character Arcs
Writers love to write plot twists; we revel in the next jolt of excitement. We are always searching for that spark to keep readers leaning in. But even the wildest plot falls flat if the main character stands still, untouched by the storm swirling around them. The stories that linger aren’t just a string of…
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There ain’t no cure for the Summertime Blues
I hate the story summer tells, and the way I never seem to belong in it. The time it represents. Those months always seem to come, and linger, for me. They don’t just pass through like any other part of the year; they arrive with a weight, like they know something I don’t, like they’ve…
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Lovely
Before I launch into what it is about being greeted with “hey lovely” that irks me so much, please allow me a grammatical side note which proves I am nasty and picky, not “lovely” at all. There are some adjectives that can go it alone without a noun, but “lovely” is not one of them.…
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The Arctic’s hottest spot: Reykjavik—36 hours in the coolest season
36 Hours in Reykjavik: The Cool Capital “Greenland is actually white because it’s full of ice,” my 3rd Grade teacher said, “And Iceland is actually green!” Then she stood in front of the chalkboard, smug and self-satisfied, as we broke out the Lakelands. It’s a widespread fallacy perpetuated by the experiences of summer visitors. It…
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Insights gained on a Trafalgar Tour of Christmas Markets
It isn’t safe to visit Bethlehem in December, so the next most Christmassy experience on Earth has to be the Christmas Markets in Germanic Europe. I took a week-long tour with Trafalgar and was hooked. The hotels were all of good quality and I stayed for several nights before the tour at The Hilton Vienna…
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Slaughterhouse-Five
—Kurt Vonnegut When I first read this novel, back when I didn’t have grey hair, it was marketed as ‘a classic of Science Fiction’. I read it because I liked science fiction, without really understanding the context of the novella, and was bitterly disappointed. Stephen King, I will point out, was also marketed as ‘Science…
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Over the Sea to Skye
It’s November and late autumn in Scotland. My brother and I are on a ‘Family Heritage Tour’ —a kind of pilgrimage— to the stomping ground of some of our ancestors—the Macleods of Dunvegan and Talisker on the Hebridean island of Skye, a popular holiday and tourist destination in summer. The tempestuous Atlantic crashes against Skye’s…
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A Sacred Sanctuary in the Mountains: The Essence of Real Japan
It is early spring in Japan. We are to the west of Mount Fuji, about three hours by train from Tokyo. Minobu, nestled on the side of a holy mountain in Yamanashi Prefecture, is off the beaten travel track and has a rich history, beautiful scenery, and spiritual significance as the home of Kuon-ji, the…
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The Cusp between the years in Tuscany
After Rome, the most bucket-listed part of Italy is probably Tuscany. I spent New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day under the Tuscan sun — how special is that? I was on a 12-day ‘Italian Delights’ tour with ExpatExplore (https://expatexplore.com/tours/italian-delights/). It was their last tour of the 2019 season and featured awakening on Christmas morning…
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Lenses on Lilac: Jacarandas in Ipswich
Where I live, in South East Queensland, there’s a saying that when the Jacarandas bloom, it’s time for students to sit exams. The trees themselves sit, so quietly, studiously, unnoticed all spring—such as spring is in The ‘swich—until one day it’s as if every single jacaranda throughout the city erupts with energetic fuchsia blossoms at…
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THE WHITE GIRL By Tony Birch
The story revolves around Aboriginal Odette Brown, a resident of the fictitious town of Deane since childhood. Deane could be in western NSW or Queensland or maybe Victoria. The only clue readers get is that it has a river which has dried up because of the activity of white people.
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Greyfriars Bobby
Now here’s an example of the weird things that human beings hold onto as significant and even make sacred by placing them in churches, temples, tabernacles and mosques.
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More Thoughts on Writing
I write lots of different things, but I write books for the same reason we read them—to find out what happens next. As carefully as I plan it, I never know, going into a story, exactly how it will end, nor even what twists the plot may take away from what I’ve planned. This makes…
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Ten To-See-or-not-to-See Destinations in Paris
Every first-time traveller to Paris hears about the same bucket-list places: the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, Versailles… For me, the list of must-see-and-practise-French sights/sites was formed by passages in the French textbooks we used at school. Those stops were unavoidable—the stuff of dreams— but for other people, they turn into overrated, crowded, or disappointing experiences.…
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A Bavarian Fairytale: Castle Neuschwanstein
Sometimes, I wish I was an artist. I’d specialise in train-window vistas. We’ve just travelled through the snowy Bavarian countryside to Germany’s deep south, where Neuschwanstein (‘Noik-sh-wonn-sty-n’), the inspiration for Disneyland’s Sleeping Beauty castle, perches on the edge of a rugged gorge in the foothills of the Alps. It’s early January and the three ‘viewing…
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Why I’ve included sex scenes in my writing
Sex is part of the common human experience, and we should write about those, shouldn’t we? I’m always struck by how authors are blithely happy to write shocking scenes of violence or murder (which rarely happens to most of us), yet tell me I’m brave when it comes to writing about sex. Sex can reveal…
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IN THE WAKE OF THE LONGBOATS
Holland America 22-day cruise from Copenhagen to Reykjavik The Context ‘I’ve never been keen on cruises and I’m on this Nordic diet,’ I stutter when my friend tells me she’s going on a Holland America cruise. ‘There’d be lactose, yeast and eggs in everything.’ Noisy bands, gaudy atrium full of ageing drunks and spas full…
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THE VENICE HOTEL by Tess Woods
I was excited about reading this book, because I was actually in Venice at the time in which it is set, in the Christmas-New Year period in 2019, just before the World locked down. The stress about cruise ships damaging the delicate city was palpable. I bought the book at Brisbane Airport to read on…
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SORROW AND BLISS By Meg Mason.
New Zealand wtiter, Meg Mason, strikes a chord in my heart, because she captures brilliantly that feeling of sticking out like a sore thumb. The main character, Martha Friel is 40, the writer of a “funny food column” that, once her editor has cut out all the jokes, is – as she sardonically acknowledges –…
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Reflections from the Writing Journey
We live in an era where it’s possible to receive instant gratification in many fields of endeavour, but except for a few notable individuals, it isn’t possible to decide to be a writer and find your inexperienced self on a dais having a Nobel Prize for Literature pinned to your instantly famous chest. Moreover, you…
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WEYWARD BY EMILIA HART
It’s as if this book, from an Australian author, with its three distinct storylines, should be in an emerging new genre labelled ‘witch lit’—a spin-off from the perky ‘chick lit’ scene rather than the fantasy genre which incorporates other recent releases such as Kirsty Logan’s ‘Now She is Witch’, Margaret Meyer’s ‘The Witching Trade’ and…
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BOOK JUST READ: THE MINISTRY OF TIME ; Kaliane Bradley
Billed as “speculative fiction”, it is perhaps more cheering to think of this novel, as 50% sci-fi thriller, and 50% romcom. Ok, I don’t normally read romcom—it’s trite and formulaic— but this is sort of along the lines of ‘The Time Traveller’s Wife’ which was devourable, crossed with the ‘Hunger Games’. It does bog down…
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AN ENJOYER OF REMNANTS OF YESTERYEAR
As a ‘taphophile’, I’m a tad excited to be going to learn the stories around an icon of Brisbane’s southwest suburbs, Toowong Cemetery, this weekend on a ghost tour. Sprawling across forty-four scenic hectares, it’s the biggest boneyard in Queensland! Steele Rudd (aka Arthur Hoey Davis), Jack-the-Ripper suspect, Walter Thomas Porriot, and Mary Kelly (no…
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BLUE BUNYIPPING* IN THE LOCAL AREA:
Kalbar is a neat, wee town on the northern end of south-east Queensland’s Scenic Rim. Settled by German immigrant farmers in the 1870s, Kalbar’s pioneering heritage can be seen in historic buildings and welcoming cafes, pubs and providores that offer hearty homestyle food made with locally grown produce; especially Germanicky is 2 m8’s BBQ Cafe…
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HAVE YOU BEEN NUUKED?
Confessing before I post: I’ve never been to Greenland* but I’ve a friend who posted photos from Nuuk, the capital city, this morning and inspired me to go down a Google rabbithole. I might have to go there before it becomes the 52nd state of the USA (after Canada, of course). By boat or plane…
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THE MARRIAGE PORTRAIT: MAGGIE O’FARRELL
GENRE: HISTORIC FICTION. Florence, the 1550s. Lucrezia, third daughter of the grand duke, is comfortable with her obscure place in the palazzo: free to wonder at its treasures, observe its clandestine workings, and devote herself to her own artistic pursuits. But when her older sister dies on the eve of her wedding to the ruler…
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SKIPPY DIES: PAUL MURRAY
GENRE: CONTEMPORARY FICTION/SATIRE Paul Murray is a master of tragic-comedic satire. You laugh heartily, but a dark heart beats beneath the humour. I love this book at the same time as I am absolutely revolted by some of the characters. ‘Skippy’ is Daniel “Skippy” Juster, so nicknamed because of his unfortunate resemblance to a certain TV…
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A MAN CALLED OVE: FREDRIK BACKMAN
GENRE: CONTEMPORARY FICTION EXPLORING THEMES OF MEMORY, GRIEF LOVE AND LOYALTY This book, originally written in Swedish, could be set in any town where people live in housing estates. It’s about a 59-year-old curmudgeon (I’ve always wanted to use that word) who lives in a housing estate and hates deviation from routine and people who…
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THE CRIMSON THREAD: KATE FORSYTH
GENRE: HISTORICAL FICTION About a quarter to midnight on New Year’s Eve, I finished reading this tapestry of myth, mystery, fantasy and historical events by Kate Forsyth. Other books of Forsyth’s, such as Bitter Greens, are also based on fairytales Her superpowers include meticulous research (adds authenticity), attention to detail and what editors call ‘head-hopping’. I…
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THE BURNT COUNTRY: JOY RHOADES
GENRE: HISTORICAL FICTION My friend, Margie, gave me this fabulous book when I was leaving Ivanhoe. It is the story of Kate, a grazier somewhere in the New England, after World War II. The poor bitch has to deal with every bloody prejudice you can imagine: Her husband wants a divorce so he can marry…
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THE LOST FLOWERS OF ALICE HART: MOLLY RINGLAND
GENRE: FAMILY SAGA/AUSTRALIAN CONTEMPORARY FICTION They shouldn’t sell this book at airports! It was a mistake to read this book on back-to-back long-haul flights and in airports because I ugly-cried and I said things like, ‘Oh No!’ out loud, attracting concerned looks from the physically perfect young Danish man sitting next to me. And I…
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TERRY PRATCHETT — A LIFE WITH FOOTNOTES: ROB WILKINS
GENRE: BIOGRAPHY I was devastated to read that Book Face, an amazing bookshop at Springfield (A suburb of Ipswich, Qld just down the road aways) had closed —- almost as devastated as I was in 2015 to hear of the final ’embuggerance’ of the irrepressible mind of Terry Pratchett OBE. Having read this artfully written…
