Kathryn's Inbox

This seat in Rundle Street looks unique and oddly inviting ...  so long as one is not wearing shorts.

On select Sundays I will be reviewing some of the old Apple Paperback titles from my childhood. These titles were published, or republished by Scholastic during the 1980s & 1990s and were written and set in the United States. In Australia, these books were typically only available from libraries or could be ordered through catalogues that were distributed through primary schools. Most of these titles are now long out of print or have been updated and republished for later generations ... All of class 5A has mysteriously disappeared apart from Julia, a smart girl with a keen interest in science and an active imagination. She runs to the office to tell the strict school principal, Mrs Flannery, but her journey is slowed by school rules and bureaucratic nonsense. The class returns and no one believes Julia, apart from her two best friends Lori and Jeff. Lori and Jeff help Julia solve the mystery, which they soon realise involved the mysterious new building next door that none ...

Growing up in Adelaide in the 1980s and 1990s it was impossible not to have heard of Colin Thiele. The former schoolteacher had become one of the states most successful authors writing a number of iconic novels set in South Australia, including The Sun on the Stubble, Blue Finn and Storm Boy, among many, many others. Sadly, when Thiele passed away in 2006, news of his passing was largely ignored by the local media--and that interstate--as he passed away during the same week as Steve Irwin and Peter Brock, and the lack of recognition given to this marvellous South Australian author is something that still makes my blood boil today. I first discovered  Jodie's Journey when I was in year six at Morphett Vale South Primary School. Our teacher read the story to the class--a chapter every afternoon--and I soon found myself getting caught up with the story of this brave young woman. The novel opens with the title character--Jodie Carpenter--and her horse Monarch, winning an ...

Just wanted to share this Garfield comic. While strip is still going, this is one of the comics from when the strip was in its golden years. It's simple, and while the humour seems a little bland or maybe childish by contemporary standards, there was once a simpler day and time, when Garfield was considered to be a bit of a bad-arse. A big part of the fun was seeing an unrepentant Garfield being yelled at by Jon. When I was a kid, I used to find these comics hilarious, mostly, I think because to me, Garfield seemed like a child and Jon an authority figure who almost always got outsmarted.

Author Virginia Andrews, or V.C. Andrews as she is known in the United States is best known for her work,  Flowers in the Attic, a book that has received considerable commentary worldwide, and indeed on this blog. During her lifetime, she published six novels (and completed three more,) and became famous for her ability to write a rollicking good story, often with gothic themes, that was as successful with teenage readers as it was with adults. Her novels were so successful that, after her death, a ghostwriter was brought in (in reality, Andrew Neiderman a successful author in his own right,) to complete some unfinished work, and to continue writing original stories on similar themes, inspired by Andrews' storytelling genius. In 2016, thirty years after the death of Andrews, Neiderman continues to write these stories, some of them stand-alone novels, some of them as two or three part series. (Sadly, the family sagas that were released during my adolescence have become a thing o...

They say every writing class has that one successful student, that one who will go on to do great things. Well, here's my experiences of most definitely not being that student ... A few months ago, I did a one-day writing course run by a well-known Australian author, one who is renowned for teaching various masterclasses, and one whom I have heard a lot of great things about. This is someone whose classes and courses have had many, many successful students, (who all have talent and are prepared to do what it takes to get to the top,) so there are no doubts in my mind about the quality and content of the course. Unfortunately, I am not likely to be one of those successful students. On a stinking hot day in early December, still suffering the aftermath of a nasty virus, not to mention an injury that has been ongoing for some months, I dragged myself out of bed first thing in the morning, and made what turned out to be an hour and a half long trip on public transport to a...

Chris Kraus' feminist novel with the unintentionally (or not) kinky title is an honest, hilarious and ultimately depressing study of infatuation and how women (and their feelings) are often cruelly dismissed by men. Part fiction, part autobiography, this story is slightly reminiscent of Anais Nin's Henry and June  (though, as I said, only slightly,) as it chronicles the married authors infatuation for an academic named Dick. Although Kraus and her husband, Sylvére Lotringer, barely know Dick, after an evening out together ends with bad weather, they take up his offer to sleep on his sofabed. In the morning, when they wake, the couple discovers that Dick is gone. Chris decides that Dick has just offered them a "conceptual fuck" and is instantly smitten. From there, an infatuation is developed, during which Sylvére (a willing participant,) and Chris write love letters to Dick. Barely knowing who Dick is, Chris is able to project anything and everything on to her tar...

There may be more than one way to decorate a fuse box, but I thought that this one in Rundle Street was pretty damn awesome!

Remember those books? The ones that always had a picture of a red apple on the front, a bright cover and a picture of a gaggle of preteen girls on the front, who were nearly always up to no good? I do! There was a time in my life, when I was between the ages of nine and twelve that I would have read anything that had that apple on the cover and rarely, if ever, was I disappointed. Apple Paperback was an imprint of Scholastic and an important one, as it was designed specifically for preteen kids. The books were (at the time,) contemporary and the situations were ones that I could relate to--friendships, school and family. A number of series were published under the imprint, most notably  The Babysitters Club,  a series that sold 172 million books worldwide during its thirteen year run.   (Source: Wikipedia)  There were plenty of other series as well--The  Gymnasts, Sleepover Friends, Animal Inn  and  Dear Diary . Back then, series, especially on...

For those of you who tried to visit my blog on the evening of Thursday 18 February, you might have been in for a surprise. I know that I certainly was. After an afternoon spent idling around my local area, and a relaxing evening curled up with a good book (complete with some beautiful Haighs hot chocolate,) I was a little surprised to receive a message on my phone from blogger, telling me: Hello,  Your blog at http://kathrynwhiteauthor.blogspot.com/ has been reviewed and confirmed as in violation of our Terms of Service for: PHISHING. In accordance to these terms, we've removed the blog and the URL is no longer accessible.  For more information, please review the following resources:  Terms of Service: https://www.blogger.com/go/terms Blogger Content Policy: https://blogger.com/go/contentpolicy  -The Blogger Team Assuming that the email was probably a scam, I put my phone down and switched my MacBook on, expecting to see my blog appear. But, nope. When I...

Tee-hee!

I bought an old, former school library copy of Boss of the Pool from the Salvation Army Op Shop at Christies Beach for 25 cents recently, thinking that it would make a nice nostalgia post. After all, it is a book that I can remember quite clearly from my primary school years, and is by a renowned Australian author. What I was not expecting was to be quite so moved by it when I revisited the book as an adult.  The novel opens with Shelley, a tough talking and bratty girl who is somewhat reminiscent of some of Klein's other female leads--think Penny Pollard from Penny Pollard's Diary, or Erica "Yuk" Yurken from Hating Alison Ashley. Klein talent is that she writes about kids, especially girls, who are believable. The stars of her novels are never nice, well behaved private school girls. Her characters are ordinary girls from the suburbs (usually Melbourne,) who have hang ups, bad habits and speak back to their parents. In the case of Shelley, she cannot underst...

Family, guilt and trying to find a sense of self are the major themes of this beautiful but occasionally morally complex debut novel by American author Virginia Reeves. Roscoe T Martin is a qualified electrician, living in Alabama in the 1920s, who loves his work. Things change when he and his wife inherit a farm from his wife's parents. The farm isn't going so well; Roscoe hates the long and difficult work, but he has a plan--one that is not strictly legal--to modernise the farm so that it can use electricity. While his plans initially do what he intended--to save the farm and his marriage--they soon come at a huge personal cost and Roscoe's life is thrown into disarray, with each turn more miserable than the next when he is arrested and convicted for manslaughter and sent to prison.  I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this one. The story was complex in a number of ways--it was not just the story of how one man went to prison, but also the story of th...

I snapped this colourful and yarn bombed pole down at Moseley Square on a Friday evening a few weeks ago. Despite Glenelg suffering the brunt of a sudden, summer storm just a few hours earlier, this bit of knitting seemed to survive quite well. Ahh, the power of wool ...

Welcome. Today I have Sara Foster, author of the brilliant new release All That is Lost Between Us, stopping by one her last stop of what has been a phenomenal blog tour. As an expert on writing great works of suspense, Sara is here today to share a few tips. Writing Nail Biting Suspense by Sara Foster 1. Read and learn from the masters. Daphne du Maurier and Susan Hill are two great suspense storytellers that immediately spring to mind. If I get stuck with writing I’ll often think of a book I admire and have a quick read for inspiration. 2. In suspense, every chapter should add in some new point of tension. Feed your reader interesting and exciting tidbits, and hopefully they will follow the trail all the way to the end.  3. Description should be kept relevant and succinct, so the pace doesn’t slow down too much.  4. Don’t let your characters do too many everyday things for too long – sleep, eat, etc. – unless they ar...

The Beautifull Cassandra [sic] is a small volume of short stories that were written by Jane Austen when she was in her teens for the amusement of her family, ones that were later discovered after her death and published because well, readers never seem to be able to get enough of Jane Austen. These stories were republished last year as part of the Penguin Little Black Classics series and for me, provided an entertaining distraction on an otherwise boring evening. Though a little bit childish in places, the stories are written in the authors trademark style, with a lot of social commentary in there and a genuine disdain for the boorish upper middle classes. Despite its silliness (and the fact that the twelve chapters are rather short,) I loved the title story The Beautifull Cassandra, which tells the story of a wicked young woman who spends the afternoon doing well, wicked things ... A treat for Austen fans that should be taken lovingly and not at all seriously. Recommended.

Just a bit of Whovian inspired humour this week.  Now, who wants a jelly baby?

How much courage does it take for someone to do what is right? That is the question at the heart of Aaron Hartzler's provocative new YA novel, What We Saw. Kate Weston is a good kid. She's smart, loves science and plays on her school soccer team. Romance is blossoming between her, and her old childhood friend, Ben. Technology isn't a terribly big part of her life and she's not really very interested in what goes on on facebook, twitter and instagram.  Oh, and Kate was at a party last Saturday night, where she and another girl got very drunk. Kate made it home okay, thanks to Ben. But something happened to Stacey and now there is a very unsavoury video being circulated on the internet. And when the police, and the media, get involved, the local close ranks. No one believes that the video exists, and those who do think that what happened is Stacey's fault. After all, she's a girl, a bit trashy and she got drunk at a party. These boys are heroes, the stars ...

Welcome to another great Writers on Wednesday interview. This week, I am lucky enough to be chatting with Australian author Alli Sinclair, whose second novel Under the Spanish Stars has just been released.  Tell me a bit about yourself … I’m an adventurer at heart and have been lucky enough to visit and live in some amazing parts of the world. I worked as a mountain climbing guide for a few seasons in the Andes and have always had a fascination for exotic destinations, cultures, and languages. My next adventure is never far from my mind, and these days I get to share them with my partner and two children. Tell me about your most recently published book? Under the Spanish Stars (published by Harlequin MIRA) When Charlotte Kavanagh travels to Spain, the land of her ancestors, to discover the mystery behind her grandmother’s painting, she uncovers decades of lies and deception that lead her to question the true meaning of heritage, family, and love. ...

Author Becca Fitzpatrick's latest release is an intriguing, page turning tale about a young woman who is one part spoiled, one part neglected, who finds herself in witness protection. Stella Gordon (as she becomes known,) is the star witness of a terrible crime and to keep her safe, the police have sent her to stay in a small town in Nebraska to live with Carmina, a no-nonsense retired former cop. In Thunder Basin, trouble comes in all kinds of forms--from Stella's feelings for the gorgeous boy next door, to the local bully, who may be a part of her undoing. But the most dangerous lie of all--well, that's for the reader to discover. For me, Dangerous Lies  was, initially, one of those books the kind that I pass on by because it didn't look like the sort of book that would appeal. Anyway, I later picked it up cheap from a bookshop that was having a closing down sale, and I ended up compulsively gobbling the whole thing up in the course of an evening. There were a...

This clever mural lives on Halifax Street, about midway between Pulteney Street and King William Street. It looks out onto a lane way and is the kind of thing that you could easily miss if you blinked. If you look more closely, however ...

NOWHERESVILLE, AUSTRALIA--Sam Sharman, a local resident and former shopper at the Nowheresville Independent Supermarket was outraged when he was refused service one hour after the store had closed. "I knew that the doors were locked, but I could see that there were people inside," he told our reporter. "So I did what any normal person who required bread, milk and smokes at ten o'clock on a weekday evening would do, and started banging on the door. The staff very rudely ignored me. I thought that it was bloody disgusting! I mean don't they want my money?" A spokesperson from the Nowheresville Independent Supermarket explained that the store was already open the maximum number of hours allowed for a store of their size in South Australia. "We are not allowed to continue trading after nine pm, it is as simple as that," the spokesperson explained. "State legislation requires us to close at nine pm and we are not permitted to open our doors...

Okay. I'm not sure that any of us need to know what Miss Piggy and got up to last night. Actually, I have no idea what she got up to last night, but clearly it didn't involve going to the supermarket to buy a packet of butter menthols ...

Newt's Emerald  by Australian author, Garth Nix, is a clever tribute to those old Georgette Heyer regency romances ... with a very magical twist. Lady Truthful Newington has just come of age when tragedy strikes--the Newington Emerald has been stolen! To get it back, Truthful comes up with a clever ploy. Whilst in London for her first 'season' she will carry a disguise--that of a man, so that she can look search for the emerald. Lady Truthful soon finds herself balancing duel roles and in all sorts of dangerous situations. Can she rescue the emerald back from the clutches of an evil sorceress and save all of England? And more importantly, is there romance in the air? Newt's Emerald can be summed up in a couple of words, terrific fun. There may not be a lot of depth to this story, but there does not need to be, instead it is better just to let the story carry you away. There are numerous convenient plot twists, dastardly villains, banter between the heroine and h...

Written by a woman of Russain Jewish origin who was living (and later, hiding,) in France during German occupation, Suite Française remained undiscovered and unpublished until the early twentieth century--sixty years after Némirovsky suffered a terrible fate inside Auschwitz. The book comprises of two nearly-finished novels that were intended as part of a five part series. The first book, Storm in June  tells the interwoven stories of four different groups as they flee Paris as German forces invade and some of the cruel realities of war and their situation--at one point Madame Péricand literally forgets her ill and ailing father-in-law and leaves him behind in her attempts to find a safe place for herself and her children. The main players in this feature are the Péricand family, Madame Péricand, her father-in-law and her children including seventeen year old Hector who is desperate to join the armed forces and fight for his country. A parallel story features oldest son, Fathe...