Fleur McDonald is one of Australia’s leading rural literature authors, with her books becoming best sellers almost as quickly as they hit the shelves. Having sold over 500,000 copies of her books, she has solidified her position as one of the country’s favourite storytellers.

The start of 2012

I wrote about traditions a couple of blog posts ago and mentioned Rochelle would be cooking our New Years Eve meal. Which she did with great aplomb! Yummy chicken drumsticks in a mustard and honey marinade and salad. It’s pretty hard to be a great cook though, when there isn’t any power! New Years Eve…

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Welcome to 2012!

  Well the sun set on a fairly crappy year last night and to be perfectly honest, I’m pleased to see the back of 2011. (I have to say, many people I’ve spoken to have found 2011 to be a bad year, so I don’t think it’s just our community that wanted to hold a…

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Traditions

One of the things I love about being married is two familles worth of traditions combine. I like traditions, especially around Christmas and birthdays. As a kid I loved knowing that we would go to the small Christmas pageant which was held in Orroroo every Christmas eve. I enjoyed the carols which were held either…

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Purple Roads

Blurb for Purple Roads (cover to follow soon!) Purple Roads will be available in April 2012. When Anna and Matt finally buy their dream farm, their struggles aren’t quite over. First it’s patchy rain and poor crops, then Matt has an accident … and even when the heavens finally open all might yet be lost.…

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Merry Christmas

  It’s CHRISTmas Eve! Can you believe it? This year has just flown by. And I must say, with cool, overcast conditions, it really doesn’t seem like Christmas! Our house is a flurry of activity at the moment – son is mowing the front lawn, daughter is tiding her room (no small job, let me…

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Time to wean the cows and calves

Weaning is a fun time of year for me. Perhaps not for the calves as they’ve been taken from their mothers for the first time! Weaning is much the same for calves as it is for human babies when mum decides it’s time to no longer feed from breast or bottle. Or when it comes…

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Scary noises…

I guess to write a book you need some sort of imagination. Imagination is something I have and have had since I was very little. I was encouraged to have imagination – my Nana Parnell would tell me stories – stories that came from her head, without pictures or books. I had to guess what…

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The start of Silver Gums

This normal-looking purple book holds they key to my imagination. It’s where I write down every thought and detail I have for my next book, Silver Gums.   I can’t tell you much about it at the moment, as I’m still working through the plot, ideas and characters.   This time I have done things…

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Miss Meita and the chooks

  Miss Meita is a gorgeous dog. In fact it’s been a while since a dog has stolen my heart the way she has. Oh, I love all dogs – they are my favourite animal, but Meita is special – almost as special as my Old Rexy. But, she is mischievous! And maybe a bit…

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Guest blog: Bush Babe of Oz

I’m really pleased to have Bush Babe from Oz blogging with me today. She’s a Rainbow. She’s an awesome gal, photographer, worker and mum. We met through the Australia (or rather world)-shrinking device of Twitter; I was drawn to her beautiful photography and she was drawn by my… Well actually I’m not sure. I don’t…

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The end is nigh…

There is a lady in Esperance who, every time she sees me, asks me if I’m writing my next book. When I say yes, she’s always surprised, but even more so when I say I have a deadline. ‘Oh, you have to write to a deadline?’ ‘Yes, yes I do,’ I nod. ‘Really? I thought…

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Editing and Harvest don’t mix

As the time for the unedited proof copies of Purple Roads to go to the printers, nears, my editing time seems to be shrinking – gasp! Late last week I got the third round of edits back and although there’s still a reasonable amount to do, there is a backlog of farm and housework that…

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