Kathryn's Inbox

One part instruction manual, one part memoir,  The Writer Laid Bare offers readers a raw, honest and truly heartfelt look into the creative process. Lee Kofman is, arguably, one of the most interesting writers in the current Australian literary scene and her work has often appealed to me for its beautiful honesty. In the Writer Laid Bare, the author puts forward her advice on how to use emotional honesty in writing, or, in short she advises readers to write what makes you blush. But, obviously, while that rule is important, there is a whole lot more to this guide. As I said, this is a memoir. Kofman takes us through her personal journey as a writer, from being a child in Russia, to moving to Israel and then Australia, the latter of which she experiences the challenge of learning to write in a third language. She shares the lessons she learned along the way, her experiences as a creative writing teacher, and the many authors that inspired her. One thing I truly appreciated was the ...

  View this post on Instagram A post shared by Kathryn White (@kathryns_inbox)

  "To thine own self be true." ~ William Shakespeare

  The Eiffel Tower is 15cm taller in summer. 

Every now and again the temptation to go back, revisit and revive some of my past work becomes just that bit too much. And out of all of my short stories there was one that desperately needed a new cover. And about 2500 extra words as it turned out.  Julie B Sets the Record Straight is a short story about about a radio host who finds herself having to interview a musician who, she believes, quoted her teenage self in one of his hit songs, and made a lot of money from her words. Of course, Julie has no proof that he did this and the probability, that an internationally famous rock star somehow managed to overhear a conversation that the then fifteen-year-old Julie had with her sisters as she walked home from school is absolutely, mind-blowingly minuscule. And yet Julie cannot shake the feeling that she is right, which leads to a very well, unusual situation in the studio. I wrote the original back in 2019 over the course of a rainy weekend. The concept of mistaken song lyrics was v...

  View this post on Instagram A post shared by Kathryn White (@kathryns_inbox)

  "Things usually work out in the end." "What if they don't?" "That just means you haven't come to the end yet." ~ Jeanette Walls

  A group of porcupines is known as a prickle.

What a bittersweet experience it was to read the eighth and final book in the Bridgerton series. On the Way to the Wedding is Gregory's story, in which he falls for the charms of Hermione Watson. This would be fine, except for two things. First everyone is in love with Hermione. Second, Hermione's particularly irritating best friend Lucy is always hanging around. Then Hermione finds herself caught in a compromising situation with Lucy's brother which can only be fixed by marrying her, then Gregory realises that it is Lucy that he has been in love with the whole time and then he discovers that Lucy is betrothed to another and no one, especially not her scheming uncle and rotten soon-to-be father-in-law are going to let her back out of in a hurry. Can love, and the virtue of being a Bridgerton possibly conquer all this time? This was such a fun read with a number of surprising twists and turns that kept me eagerly reading well into the night. Quinn treats her characters well,...

I first encountered the Age of Innocence as a nineteen year old university student, when it was a set text for one of my English Lit classes. At the time, many of the nuances that appear in the novel passed me by and--until I reached the final chapters--it appeared to be the straightforward story of a pompous man who gets engaged to one woman, promptly falls in love with her cousin and marries the first one just so that he and both of the women in his life can suffer. It wasn't until I got to the end, and I saw that May was just as bad as her husband, that I realised what the book was about.  Archer Newland is a young man in a position of privilege in New York in 1870. He comes from old money, has a respectable job as a lawyer and has recently become engaged to May, a girl from the same social circles as his own. On the surface, it is a good match. They both come from similar wealthy families. While Newland has enjoyed the kind of bachelorhood offered to men in his position, where...

  View this post on Instagram A post shared by Kathryn White (@kathryns_inbox)

  “Life is a journey, not a destination.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Cookie Monster's real name is Sid.

What a lot of fun this light hearted romance about a group of macho male baseball players who have a book club turned out to be. Gavin Scott's life is in ruins. Sure, he might be a top baseball player, but what does that matter when his marriage is not only breaking down, but it turns out that his wife has been faking it in bed the whole time. Now he's been pushed out of the house and Thea's bratty sister is foiling every one of his genuine and heartfelt attempts at reconciliation. (Along with making it difficult for him to see his twin daughters.) Then and teammate introduces him to a book club for men--where they read romance novels and try to find very real and useful ways to help one another fix their relationship troubles. Can Gavin save his marriage? Or is it already gone? I loved the concept of this one. That said, I have to be totally honest and admit that I was very ready to give this book up after a couple of chapters. Although the situation is intended to be amus...

It was Stephen Hawking who once said that quiet people have the loudest minds, and Nowegian Wood is a celebration of that fact. When Toru Watanabe hears his favourite Beatles song at the airport, he finds himself transported back to his university days. Living in an all-male dorm in Tokyo in the late 1960s, he is struggling to comprehend the suicide of his childhood best friend Kizuki, while he slowly and painfully falls in love with both Naoko, the quiet girlfriend of Kizuki, and Midori, a free spirited young woman. Along the way, he makes all kinds of unusual friendships and sees glimpses into people at their best, and at their worst. Norwegian Wood is a book that is equal parts sad and beautiful. I loved the glimpse into the depiction of university life that wasn't all about parties and social status, identity politics, or about trying to infiltrate various groups. Toru just happens to be studying, but his life goes well beyond what is happening on campus. His friendships are f...

  View this post on Instagram A post shared by Kathryn White (@kathryns_inbox)

  "Never look back unless you are planning to go that way." ~ Henry David Thoreau

One of the longest, and arguably, most infuriating, running gags in Charles Schulz's otherwise brilliant Peanuts comic strip, is where Lucy promises to hold a football for Charlie Brown and then pulls it away at the last minute, causing Charlie Brown to fall flat on his back. A typical strip looks like this: Source: Go Comics The gag is one of the darker themes in the strip. It works on the concept that every year, Lucy promises to hold a football for Charlie Brown. Every year, Charlie Brown is initially filled with doubt but is eventually pushed on by a kind of optimism that perhaps, this time, Lucy might just let him kick it after all. As a metaphor for life, it is pretty simple. It talks of the moments when we choose to put our trust in people who have let us down only to be taken by surprise when they let us down, again. Lucy is, arguably, one of the crueller characters in the comic. Described as crabby by the other characters, she is often selfish, takes delight in wilfully hu...

  The average person blinks twenty times per minute.

  View this post on Instagram A post shared by Kathryn White (@kathryns_inbox)

  "We rise by lifting others." ~ Robert Ingersoll