Margaret Connolly has been a literary agent for more than twenty years, after giving up a career as a lawyer in the mid-1980s.

She set up her own business in 1992, and since then has developed a client list which resembles a roll-call of Australia's finest novelists, poets, dramatists, non-fiction authors, film-makers, children's writers and illustrators.

She works from home, on a desk which is covered with papers and one very useful computer.

The "Associates" in her company's title consist of her husband, three children and a dog named Arthur.