Writing – Jadi Campbell

Today’s Birthday: Colleen Margaretta McCullough

Author Colleen McCullough was born on June 1, 1937 in Wellington, Australia. She wrote a highly regarded series on Rome; she taught and did research at Yale’s Medical School Dept. of Neurology. And while she was working at Yale – because neurology and a position at an Ivy League university somehow didn’t take up all her time – she wrote The Thorn Birds. In her honor I give you the post I wrote after visiting the Outback. —Jadi

In The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCullough vividly depicts a turn of the century sheep ranch in the Australian Outback. The hardships of working an unforgiving landscape, conditions that seem too extreme to be real, and the isolation are all accurately portrayed.

You’re already yawning, right?

All right then, how about this? In The Thorn Birds, young heroine Meggie and the priest Father Ralph de Bricassart, many years her senior, fall in love. Their life long passion is both forefront and backdrop to the fates of a family in the Outback.

That caught your attention!

I’m not usually one for the guilty pleasure of romance novels, but this one works on so many levels that it’s irresistible. Whether as romance, family saga, or historical portrayal, The Thorn Birds is a great read. It’s also accurate to a fault. As you read this book, you experience Australia’s hard climate along with McCullough’s characters.

Uwe and I drove through a small portion of the Western Australia Outback. Our goal was the gold mining town of Kalgoorlie-Boulder and we had a long, stop-every-3-hours to stretch our legs drive to do. The Coolgardie-Esperance Highway goes on with no bends or turns (and very few trees).

We halted briefly in Norseman

WR_05_03_508 — Norseman, Western Australia

and purchased sandwiches and drinks for a planned picnic stop. But there was a problem: no picnic tables anywhere. We drove and drove. Why, on such an endless highway, were there were no facilities?

We finally gave up and pulled over to the side of the road.

WR_05_03_390 — At least there was a tree and some shade

I got out of the car and spread lunch on the hood. I was too hungry to wait for Uwe, so I unwrapped my sandwich and yummy cake, and gazed out into the endless empty brush.

WR_05_03_393 — The Indian Ocean is somewhere on the other side of those mountains

Every fly in the endless empty brush left wherever they’d been snoozing. Within seconds my eyes and mouth, my hands and arms, and my lunch were engulfed with fat hungry insects. My sandwich was rendered way beyond salvaging; it had vanished under layers of crawling flies. I wrapped everything back into a bag to throw away later and contented myself with a piece of fruit (eaten in the car, with the windows all closed).

In case you’re eating your own lunch as you read this I won’t tell you what it is in The Thorn Birds that’s covered in flies. But man, that McCullough sure can write!

In memory of Colleen McCullough, June 1, 1937 to January 29, 2015

NOTES: Copyright © 2013 Jadi Campbell. Previously published as The Outback. To see Uwe’s animal photos and pics from our trips go to viewpics.de. PS: In the last thirty years, I’ve read The Thorn Birds four times. I’m sure I’ll read it again….

I am a Best American Essays-nominated writer. My award-listed books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys, Grounded, The Trail Back Out, and The Taste of Your Name. My most recent book, The Taste of Your Name, was a finalist for the 2025 Compass Press Book Award.

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Save the Animal Kingdom! #1

I dedicated this blog thread to my father Bobbo, who worked for the Forest Service. On one of our last family visits we sat around and gleefully read out a list describing groups of animals … I now dedicate it to our endangered planet.

See how many you can guess. Answers listed at the bottom of the page.

The shrewdness shrewdly assessed the jungle floor.
This obstinacy obstinately refused to budge.
The covert covertly hid, migrating only at night.
The big bask basked in the river, seemingly aware nothing would dare attack them.
In spite of myself I was charmed by the pitiful piteousness.
The safe sought safety on the shoreline.

Answers:

Shrewdness of apes [1]
Obstinacy of buffalo
Covert of coots
Bask of crocodiles
Piteousness of doves
Safe of ducks (on land)

Bask member basking, Khao Yai National Park, Thailand

I’m beyond dismayed – I am furious. The Trump administration is gutting environmental protections. Take action. Speak up! Write letters, make phone calls, donate to organizations like the Environmental Defense Fund and Greenpeace.

NOTES: [1] All 22 species of apes, which include great apes and gibbons, are threatened with extinction. Endangered Species © Jadi Campbell 2025. All photos © Uwe Hartmann. To see more of Uwe’s animal photos and pics from our trips go to viewpics.de. Fun animal names from www.writers-free-reference.com, Mother Nature Network and www.reference.com.

I am a Best American Essays-nominated writer. My books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys, Grounded, The Trail Back Out, and The Taste of Your Name. My most recent book The Taste of Your Name was a finalist for the 2025 Compass Press Book Award.

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Epistemic Literary Magazine is now available in print

I am delighted to report that Epistemic Literary has published their first print anthology, consisting of the first four issues of the online magazine! Available on Amazon. Proceeds will go towards paying authors for their work.

My short story Food is Love appeared in their very first issue.

https://www.amazon.com/Epistemic Literary Magazine

NOTES: Food is Love was an excerpt from my most recent novel The Taste of Your Name. © Jadi Campbell 2025. I am a Best American Essays-nominated writer. My books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys, Grounded, The Trail Back Out, and The Taste of Your Name.

The Taste of Your Name was a finalist for the 2025 Compass Press Book Award. Available here: The Taste of Your Name

My Imaginary Friends: #13 Brian Klevenger

Maybe it’s weird, but I know more about people in my imagined universe than I do about the real people in my life. I figure real folks are entitled to their privacy. But if I thought you up and wrote you down, I DO know and WILL share salacious and embarassing details.

I create back stories for all my characters. People in my books reappear in later works. I take characters who showed up in an earlier novel or short story and fill in their profiles – sometimes against their wills.

Which brings us to Brian Klevenger. He made a brief appearance in Tsunami Cowboys, remember? Brian is Scott McCreedy’s best friend. He’s an only child, the son of alcoholics, and spends as much time as possible at Scott’s house.

Brian takes center stage in my most recent novel The Taste of Your Name. He’s fled to Germany where he does reminiscence therapy with dementia patients. He’s sleeping with two sisters. And (because I wrote his story) I tell the readers his most secret inner thoughts and emotions (because getting to do so is one of the great rewards of being a writer).

Brian is one of the most complex, complete human beings I know. You can meet him here: Amazon.com. Available around the world as eBook, hardcover, and paperback.

NOTES: © Jadi Campbell 2025. To see Uwe’s pics from our trips go to viewpics.de.

I am a Best American Essays-nominated writer. My books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys, Grounded, The Trail Back Out, and The Taste of Your Name. My most recent book with Brian, The Taste of Your Name, was a finalist for the 2025 Compass Press Book Award.

Save The Animal Kingdom!

I’m beyond dismayed – I am furious. The Trump administration is gutting environmental protections. As The Los Angeles Times reported, “Repealing key protections could erase $254 billion in annual benefits for public health and the environment, compared with $39 billion in savings for regulated industries.” [1]

To quote blogger Curtis Mahon: “To my many friends who thought it wouldn’t happen, guess what, it has happened! Donald Trump has dropped the environmental destruction nuke of an EO, planning to sunset ALL environmental regulations made in the last 100 years. And I mean ALL. https://www.whitehouse.gov/…/zero-based-regulatory…/

The Endangered Species Act. Gone. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act. Gone. The Marine Mammal Protection Act. Gone. The Anadromous Fish Conservation Act. Gone. The Bald Eagle Protection Act. Gone! You name it, it’s gone.

To remind those friends why we have these laws, I’m going to try to put them into terms which anyone can understand, money. The Endangered Species Act is literally the founding, central pillar of modern conservation globally. It’s hard to list the accomplishments of this act as it is so vast. It directly protects and calls for plans to raise the populations of rare species. It’s directly responsible for the comeback of many iconic species, such as the Bald Eagle, the Peregrine Falcon, the California Condor, and a host of others. Talk about return on investment, the amount of money spent vs the amount gained from people wishing to just see iconic rare species is in the billions of dollars. For what would a visit to the grand canyon be without seeing a condor soar over or a visit to Yellowstone without seeing wolves and bison. People do whole drives across the country just for these experiences and that’s what the ESA is about. Lots of revenue there. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act was one of the first environmental laws every made, and bans the harm or collection of all non-game birds in America. It was implemented in a time when hunters we shooting everything to turn them into hats, from songbirds to puffins to herons to albatross. The banning of this and subsequent restoration efforts lead to dramatic increases in bird populations and continue to protect them from harm. In just one example, consider a puffin. In Maine, every tourist I talk to wants to see two things, lobster and puffins. They were once hunted to near extinction in the US and are now a central pillar to the economy of an ENTIRE STATE. Thousands of people a DAY take expensive boat trips for puffins and that’s at risk without these regulations, not to mention cuts to NOAA. The Marine Mammal Protection Act protects whales from being killed or harmed and lead to the global war on whaling. Now because of it, America watches whales! You can go on a whale watch in nearly every coastal city in America and it generates HUNDREDS of millions of dollars in tourism and employs thousands of people. We hurt whales, we hurt our pockets and jobs.

The Anadromous Fish Conservation Act allows the government to enter agreements with states and plan and fund ways to increase the populations of migratory fish. It has direct benefits to anglers across the country, funding 50% of initiatives for things like stocking and habitat restoration in major fisheries such as both Atlantic and Pacific Salmon, Trout, Striped Bass, American Shad, and Sturgeon. And removing the Bald Eagle Protection Act! I thought we loved eagle guys? What’s more American than a Bald Eagle, and they want to remove protections for them? Many older Americans can probably remember a time when they never saw Bald Eagles. Now you can see them commonly in nearly every state! That’s a direct result of the Endangered Species Act and Bald Eagle Protection Act. These are just a few of the laws the Republican party wishes to remove. All have proven track records of benefiting Americans, both monetarily through supporting major American industries worth billions of dollars and employing hundreds of thousands of Americans and spiritually as corner stones of the country’s wilderness. The removal of these protections is peak short term gains over long term profits.”

I’m going to repost a blog thread I wrote ten years ago. I wrote it to honor my entomologist father Bobbo and inform readers in a humorous way about animals that are on the Endangered Species List.

Now it’s going to be all of them. We won’t take long to end up on that list too. For these posts I updated my information on endangered species. Most of the news is grim. Take action. Volunteer. Speak up! Write letters, make phone calls, donate to organizations like the Environmental Defense Fund and Greenpeace.

NOTES: [1] https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2025-04-05/trump-is-gutting-the-nations-environmental-programs-heres-how-much-it-will-cost-americans © Jadi Campbell 2025. To see Uwe’s pics from our trips go to viewpics.de.

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Basket #2: Ribs of a Zebra

Traveling for a long time with just one suitcase is great. It forces me to limit what I take with me. And it limits what I can bring back. I admit it: I felt pretty virtuous about this. And then I fell in love with the traditional baskets of southern Africa.

We were in a remote lodge and wanted to buy a bird book to identify the bird life Uwe was taking pictures of every day. I wandered around their gift shop. They had a collection of brightly colored woven metal baskets, but the one I was most drawn to was a natural-colored basket hanging on the wall.

“It’s from Chobe,” I was told. We’d just come from there, and I left the shop with book and basket. I began to search out baskets from small stands on the roadsides.

Here’s another beautiful basket for you. This pattern is called: The ribs of a zebra. Isn’t it stunning?

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Save Your Receipts!

Consider this a public service announcement. I repeat: Save your receipts!

I just took a long holiday which started in January. It’s a long flight to New York City. I arrived jet-lagged and my bag hadn’t made it onto the plane. It was about 0° Celsius and all my other sweaters were in Frankfurt. I was tired, annoyed, and cold.

Avoid gypsy cabs! Don’t get ripped off! signs warned. I booked a taxi to the city at JFK’s official airport kiosk in the International Arrivals terminal. My cab ride would cost about $77. Fair enough…

When the driver dropped me at my hotel I paid with a credit card and rounded up the bill to $95 to give him an $18 tip, stuffed the receipt in my wallet, and wearily climbed out of the cab. Let the holidays begin!

A week later in Mexico (I did say this was an extended trip) I logged into my bank’s website to see which charges had come in. There was my cab ride in NYC… $178.44.

WTF???

I remembered that receipt I’d stuffed in my wallet. Later I’d placed it with all the other receipts I’d accrued while traveling. I like to check them against the bank charges to be sure my account balances are still sufficient to cover costs. I dug through my bag (which had finally arrived almost 48 hours after I did) and found the receipt for the taxi ride. Check it out:

Did you spot it? He’d given himself a VERY generous $95 tip. I was so jet-lagged that without checking I’d just signed the credit card machine he’d held out. “Round it up to $95,” I’d told him. $95?” he’d repeated.

Maybe it had been an honest mistake. Or maybe as a driver picking up tourists traveling from overseas he’d figured that I would head on my merry way and never know that he’d knowingly given himself a tip that would cost me more than the ride itself. He figured I’d see the charge on my bank statement and not have any way to get my money back.

Check out that receipt again.

It gives his driver number. 5841026. It lists his cab number. 1P88. It names the date, time, distance, tunnel charges, starting point and destination, AND IT PROVIDES A WEBSITE!

I wrote a pissed-off email to the company and they reimbursed me for the tip charge ($95!!!) the next day. I don’t know what happened to Driver #5841026, but I enjoyed some fantasies… So. In conclusion, save your receipts.

And don’t leave the damned cab before you review what you’re being charged.

Happy Trails,

Jadi

NOTES: © Jadi Campbell 2025. To see Uwe’s pics from our trips go to viewpics.de.

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Today’s Birthday: Washington Irving

Author Washington Irving was born on April 3, 1783 in New York. Washington Irving is a lifetime favorite, beginning with my childhood: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow! Rip Van Winkle! We lived near the region he set his stories in and it was easy to imagine his terrifying headless horsemen or the bearded men bowling in the hills and creating thunder.

I’d forgotten that he stayed and wrote at the Alhambra in 1829, when it was a neglected ruin. Now, that’s artistic inspiration. In his honor here is the post I wrote after visiting the Alhambra. —Jadi

***

“Perhaps there never was a monument more characteristic of an age and people than the Alhambra; a rugged fortress without, a voluptuous palace within; war frowning from its battlements; poetry breathing throughout the fairy architecture of its halls.” ― Washington Irving, Tales of the Alhambra

I made a second trip to southern Spain. It had been over forty years between visits, and I had no idea what – if anything – I might remember. My first trip was with my high school Spanish Club. We were all young, and boy were we excited to be able to drink legally for a change!

In an earlier post I wrote about my spatial memories in Granada. At the Alhambra I had strange wavy recollections of reflecting pools and intricate walls.

To visit the palace rooms of the Alhambra is like stepping inside one gigantic extended scrollwork of interlocking geometric design.

I can remember loving the symmetry. I sure don’t remember any specific part of it. As I say, my memories are a blurry recollection of warm stone walls with ingenious decorations. Just… an impression of a harmony that contains a hundred thousand details you will get lost in once you begin examining the space more closely.

Southern Spain is frequently the hottest region in Europe. At the peak of summer, it stays oppressively hot (100°F and above) and very dry. We visited Andalusia at the very end of September/start of October, and the temperatures were still in the 90s. You seek relief in rooms with the latticed windows that let in light but not heat. Or you walk in the walled gardens.

Water, water, everywhere…. The former Islamic rulers built a sophisticated system of fountains and pools. Those fountains were designed to include the sound of flowing waters, and flowers and fruit trees were planted to delight the senses with their perfumes.

Memory returned vivid and at the same time somehow distorted at the Alhambra palace’s innermost courtyard spaces. Only those wonderful carved lions at the private fountain were just as I remembered them.

And those were more than enough to make me very, very happy.

“In the present day, when popular literature is running into the low levels of life, and luxuriating on the vices and follies of mankind; and when the universal pursuit of gain is trampling down the early growth of poetic feeling, and wearing out the verdure of the soul, I question whether it would not be of service for the reader occasionally to turn to these records of prouder times and loftier modes of thinking; and to steep himself to the very lips in old Spanish romance.” ― Washington Irving, Tales of the Alhambra

In memory of Washington Irving, April 3, 1783 – November 28, 1859

NOTES: © Jadi Campbell 2017. Previously published as Andalusia Memories 2: Alhambra Walls and Water. All photos © Uwe Hartmann. To see more of Uwe’s pics from our trips go to viewpics.de.

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Your Zebra of the Month: March

My sisters enjoyed their Zebra of the Day pics, so here is a Zebra of the Month for you, just in case you’re in need of a reason to smile.

ZZZZZZZEBRA!!!

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What led me to buy the first basket…

The south of Africa’s exotic landscapes and incredible wildlife have provided me with an endless source of inspiration. The more I write, the more I recall about what we saw and experienced.

I fell in love with the traditional baskets and – something I never, ever do – I sought them out and purchased some to bring home. It’s a rare desire for me. My rule of thumb when we’re traveling is to keep reminding myself: “Jadi, you own an apartment, not a big house! Where are you going to store anything you bring home?” So, I limit myself to one beautiful item, and try to make it an object that’s useful.

But, the baskets. I bought the first one at a Living Village, excusing the purchase by telling Uwe I wanted to support local arts and artists of the Kavango.

I picked up and held at least half those baskets one by one, trying to decide. There was no one else there so I could take my time.

Later, when I was seeking out small stands with traditional baskets, I told each shop keeper, “I’m sorry, but I’m a slow shopper…. I’m waiting to hear which of your baskets speaks to me.” They all smiled when I said this. I think they liked the idea of a tourist who was willing to wait until a piece of handmade work reached out to her with something to say.

I’d connected with the history and artistry and continuity and passing on of tradition – and love – that each basket contains. At some point very early in our trip, Uwe and I fell in love with these countries and this part of the world and its people. Most places and people are wonderful, of course; but this area of southern Africa touched us in a deep immediate way.

The Living Villages in Namibia are staffed by local San people who want to keep the old traditions from fading from memory. A joint Namibia/German project, the Living Villages promoted community-based tourism.

boys practice with hewing small boats; as adults, they’ll know how to make the real ones

Sometimes traveling we feel like we bear witness to a culture that’s changing so fast it will soon be gone. The Mbunza Living Museum got me interested in the region’s basketry – a tradition that’s still very much alive.

I bought my first basket here. 5 more followed.

My first basket on the left, from the Mbunza Living Museum. Pattern: Tears of the giraffe

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Category: Writing

Today’s Birthday: Colleen Margaretta McCullough

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Save the Animal Kingdom! #1

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Epistemic Literary Magazine is now available in print

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My Imaginary Friends: #13 Brian Klevenger

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Save The Animal Kingdom!

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Basket #2: Ribs of a Zebra

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Save Your Receipts!

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Today’s Birthday: Washington Irving

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Your Zebra of the Month: March

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What led me to buy the first basket…

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