The bestselling author and reformed cartoonist on the ‘naughty frauds’ she admires, the challenges young people face, and why women read about having sex with fairies
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“I brought you a present,” author Kaz Cooke tells me, handing over a book titled Elvis Presley Speaks. A browning, dog-eared mass market copy, it’s the King’s account from beyond the grave, written by the parapsychologist Hans Holzer.
It’s perfect – the sort of thoughtful, thematically relevant gift Cooke would have advised you to bring along in Keep Yourself Nice, the wacky advice column she once wrote for the Age. Or even an awkward moment for Hermione the Modern Girl, the original strip cartoon that launched her career as a cartoonist in the 80s. Her distinctive cartoon style decorates the cover of her 1999 pregnancy bible, Up the Duff, which adorns the bookshelves of many Australian women of a certain age. From there, Cooke’s output covered off on Babies and Toddlers, girlhood and puberty, and then It’s the Menopause (“What the hell is happening to your hair? Why do you want to bite everyone?”).
We meet at the fountain of the Royal Exhibition Building on a stunning Melbourne spring day, Cooke in a flowing black dress and long pale hair.
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