Quintessentially hyperlocal, the Mary Valley Telegraph delivers news to a string of villages along a former railway line, boasting “it takes two hands to hold, not two thumbs to scroll”.
The towns are Dagun and Amamoor – to which tourist steam train the Rattler (and a midweek railcar) still run – and beyond to the history and hope of Kandanga, Imbil, Brooloo and Kenilworth, just the west of the GXpress office, as it happens. What a definition of circulation!
With its twenty-sixth issue, Celeste Frances Scott looks back on the lightbulb moment when she decided to turn an “op-shop sized budget” and decades of experience in newspapers into a tentative eight-page issue.
“My challenge now is reining the editions in to just 28 pages,” she says.
The founder-editor – who encouragingly adds “proofer” to her duties – says the content filling her inbox has confirmed the need was there. “I love and learn with every aspect producing a magazine I can say, hand on heart, has been ‘community grown’ from that very first edition.”
Proofreading, she says, “is the bane of my existence and definitely not my forte” – but the results speak otherwise, and she boldly prints the anniversary issue in black and white (1200 copies, courtesy of local provider Sunprint), keen that it will not “succumb to a digital read”. The ‘over-A4’ product is especially distinctive in black only, and it will be interesting to see whether she continues with it.
Scott says 2025 is her fourth year of going to print. “Having written for regional publications in the past, I know enjoyment for the reader must come in the delivery of consistent engaging editorial content.”
The steam-powered Mary Valley Rattler, incidentally, is back to regular runs from its base in Gympie to Amamoor – home of the annual Muster music festival – after being closed following derailments in 2012. It restarted after the regional council chipped in more than $4 million for start-up costs and capital, and has become a major tourist attraction.
Peter Coleman
Pictured: A fully-restored steam locomotive pulls the Rattler; (top) the historic Yabba Creek bridge near Imbil is popular with tourists