INTERNATIONALLY-acclaimed author Colleen McCullough has been remembered as a passionate, effervescent character by one Wagga woman who had a chance meeting with her 30 years ago.
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At the time, Wagga’s Muriel Lang was at her antiques shop The Good Companions, in the South Town Walk, when Ms McCullough paid a visit.
“She was very full-on,” Mrs Lang said.
“She came to the shop one evening after I was closed. She was driving through on her way to Melbourne.
“I remember she bound in; she was effervescent.
“She fell in love with two large, matching antique vases.
“I don’t remember what they looked like or what make they were now but she was passionate about them.”
This chance meeting took place after the author had penned her most well-known work, The Thorn Birds.
Set on a remote sheep station in outback Australia, The Thorn Birds sold more than 30 million copies and was later adapted as a hugely successful TV mini series.
The book was just one of 24 novels written by Ms McCullough in her four-decade career.
Ms McCullough died in hospital at Norfolk Island on Thursday, aged 77.
Tributes have poured in from all corners of the globe but to Mrs Lang, Ms McCullough will live on in her memories of that night about 30 years ago.
“I was so impressed by her and who she was,” she said.
Novels
Tim (1974)
The Thorn Birds (1977)
An Indecent Obsession (1981)
A Creed for the Third Millennium (1985)
The Ladies of Missalonghi (1987)
The Song of Troy (1998)
Morgan's Run (2000)
The Touch (2003)
Angel Puss (2004)
The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet (2008)
Bittersweet (2013)
Masters of Rome series
The First Man in Rome (1990)
The Grass Crown (1991)
Fortune's Favorites (1993)
Caesar's Women (1996)
Caesar (1997)
The October Horse (2002)
Antony and Cleopatra (2007)
Carmine Delmonico series
On, Off (2006)
Too Many Murders (December 2009)
Naked Cruelty (2010)
The Prodigal Son (2012)
Sins of the Flesh (2013)
Biography
The Courage and the Will: The Life of Roden Cutler VC (1999)