About James Coghlan

For thirty years, that thought has driven every story James Coghlan has ever told.

James was born and raised in Mount Isa - a town he left for fourteen years, then came home to with his wife Fiona and a young family, and has never really left since. He completed his electrical apprenticeship with Mount Isa Mines, worked in the trade at Power and Water and George Fisher Mine, and went on to serve the community as a mines inspector, a safety officer, a school chaplain, a P&F president, a youth group leader, a sports coach, a councillor, and somewhere in the middle of all of it - a writer.

He has always been a writer.

The stories that never make the front page

For years, James published a quarterly magazine called My Isa - a labour of love he produced while working full-time, dedicated to the people, places and stories that defined life in Mount Isa. Five thousand copies every three months. Stories about the people who built the town, coached the teams, ran the canteen, kept the lights on, and made the kind of contribution nobody thinks to put in a newspaper.

He wrote history books for sporting associations. He wrote a novel. He told the stories of people who never thought anyone would be interested in them.

He was always interested.

In 2025, following the death of his wife Fiona, James did something that seemed impossible and completely inevitable at the same time. He ran 700 kilometres in ten days - seven marathons across seven mines in the Northwest - to honour Fiona's memory and tell their story through cancer, grief, and what it means to keep going.

He wrote a book about it.

Because that's what James does. He lives things, and then he finds a way to give them to other people.

“Fiona and I had a plan. She'd play in the garden. I'd sit and write. We'd travel. I'm doing my part of the plan. I'm doing it for both of us."

What this platform is about

James Coghlan Stories exists because Mount Isa no longer has a local newspaper, and because the stories that matter most are the quietest ones.

This is a place for the people nobody writes about - the woman who fed thousands without ever being asked, the man who built the town pool with his own hands, the nurse who stayed when everyone else left, the waitress from Melbourne James met in a New York diner who had a story nobody had thought to ask for.

Good people doing ordinary things extraordinarily well. Regional Australians. People anywhere who are just getting on with it.

Every story here is told with honesty, care, and a deep respect for the person at the centre of it.

“The more good people you have in your life, the better your life will be. I've believed that my whole life. This platform is my attempt to prove it."