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Nicole Kelly is a teacher, mother and writer from Beaufort. She loves the open paddocks and towering gums of her rural life. The themes of family, motherhood and living rurally are central to much of her writing. Runner-up in the Hawkeye Manuscript prize, her debut novel, lament, was published in 2020. With published fiction, non-fiction and short stories to her name, Nicole is working on her new historical fiction novel set on the Murray River.

About Lament

In June 1880, the reign of the Kelly Gang ended – guns blazing – in a fiery siege at the Glenrowan Inn. Ned Kelly survived, only to be hanged four months later. In this re-imagining of Australia’s most notorious bushranger, Ned is given the chance to keep his band of brothers together and build a better life.

What unfolds is the human side of four outlaws who are remembered as much for their anarchy and rebellion as their crimes. Ned Kelly. The life that might have been.

A historical tale of Australia’s most notorious outlaws with a slight twist. Nicole Kelly breathes life back into Ned Kelly and expertly explores the hopes and ideals of a young man on the wrong side of the law, and the life he might have lived if he had escaped his past.