Kaz Cooke
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Kaz Cooke (born Karen Cooke; 17 December 1962) is an Australian author, cartoonist and broadcaster. She has written several bestselling advice books for girls and women, including ''Real Gorgeous'', ''Up the Duff'' (also published under different titles outside of Australia), ''Kidwrangling''. ''Girl Stuff'' and ''Women's Stuff'', as well as a series of ebooks on women's health topics. Cooke has been a columnist for various Australian newspapers and magazines, including '' Dolly'', ''
The Age ''The Age'' is a daily newspaper in Melbourne, Australia, that has been published since 1854. Owned and published by Nine Entertainment, ''The Age'' primarily serves Victoria (Australia), Victoria, but copies also sell in Tasmania, the Austral ...
'', ''
The Australian ''The Australian'', with its Saturday edition ''The Weekend Australian'', is a broadsheet daily newspaper published by News Corp Australia since 14 July 1964. As the only Australian daily newspaper distributed nationally, its readership of b ...
'', ''
Who The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations which coordinates responses to international public health issues and emergencies. It is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, and has 6 regional offices and 15 ...
'' and ''
The Canberra Times ''The Canberra Times'' is a daily newspaper in Canberra, Australia, which is published by Australian Community Media. It was founded in 1926, and has changed ownership and format several times. History ''The Canberra Times'' was launched in 1 ...
''. A collection of her columns, '' Living with Crazy Buttocks'', won the 2002
Bookseller/Diagram Prize for Oddest Title of the Year The ''Bookseller''/Diagram Prize for Oddest Title of the Year, originally known as the Diagram Group Prize for the Oddest Title and commonly known as the Diagram Prize, is a humorous literary award that is given annually to a book with an unusu ...
. In 2008, ''Girl Stuff'' won the Australian Publishers Association's General Non-fiction Book of the Year, the
Australian Booksellers Association The Australian Booksellers Association (also known as BookPeople) promotes the interests of booksellers in Australia. The association has its origins in state associations formed early in the 20th century, which later amalgamated into a federal ass ...
Nielsen BookData Booksellers' Choice Award, and an honour prize from the Children’s Book Council of Australia.


Life

Kaz Cooke was born and raised in Melbourne. As a teenager she worked in a second-hand bookstore, where she discovered the satirical
Nigel Molesworth Nigel Molesworth is a fictional character, the supposed author of a series of books about life in an English prep school named St Custard's. The books were written by Geoffrey Willans, with cartoon illustrations by Ronald Searle. The Moleswo ...
novels of
Geoffrey Willans Herbert Geoffrey Willans, RNVR, (4 February 1911 – 6 August 1958), an English writer and journalist, is best known as the creator of Nigel Molesworth, the "goriller of 3B" and "curse of St. Custard's", as in the four books with illustration ...
, illustrated by cartoonist
Ronald Searle Ronald William Fordham Searle (3 March 1920 – 30 December 2011) was an English artist and satirical cartoonist, comics artist, sculptor, medal designer and illustrator. He is perhaps best remembered as the creator of St Trinian's School and f ...
, and Searle's
St Trinian's School ''St Trinian's'' is a British gag cartoon comic strip series, created and drawn by Ronald Searle from 1946 until 1952. The cartoons all centre on a boarding school for girls, where the teachers are sadists and the girls are juvenile delinquent ...
cartoons. According to Cooke, they were her "first, and maybe biggest ever, influences". In 2010 Cooke accompanied fellow authors Andy Griffiths and
Kate Grenville Catherine Elizabeth Grenville (born 1950) is an Australian author. She has published fifteen books, including fiction, non-fiction, biography, and books about the writing process. In 2001, she won the Orange Prize for Fiction, Orange Prize for ...
to the remote Northern Territory community of Manyallaluk, 66 kilometres north-east of
Katherine Katherine (), also spelled Catherine and Catherina, other variations, is a feminine given name. The name and its variants are popular in countries where large Christian populations exist, because of its associations with one of the earliest Ch ...
, to work with schoolchildren as part of the Indigenous Literacy Project.


Journalism

Cooke started as a cadet journalist at ''
The Age ''The Age'' is a daily newspaper in Melbourne, Australia, that has been published since 1854. Owned and published by Nine Entertainment, ''The Age'' primarily serves Victoria (Australia), Victoria, but copies also sell in Tasmania, the Austral ...
'' in 1981, a month after her 18th birthday, and worked as a junior news reporter in the ''Age'''s Sydney bureau in the early 1980s. In 1986 she was the editor of the Age's Friday 'Entertainment Guide' section (now known as 'EG'), then in 1987 she was the features editor of the short-lived Business Daily independent magazine. Articles by Cooke appeared in the 1980s in '' Dolly'', '' The Australian Women’s Weekly'' and '' Cleo''. In the late 1980s she began writing an etiquette column for ''The Age'' called 'Keep Yourself Nice'. In the 1990s she had a regular column in the '' Weekend Australian Magazine'' and a satirical gossip column in ''Who'' magazine. In the 2000s she wrote about television for ''
The Canberra Times ''The Canberra Times'' is a daily newspaper in Canberra, Australia, which is published by Australian Community Media. It was founded in 1926, and has changed ownership and format several times. History ''The Canberra Times'' was launched in 1 ...
'', and occasional opinion pieces for various other publications.


Cartoons

Cooke's early cartoons appeared in '' The Cane Toad Times'', ''The Eye'', ''The National Times'' and other independent newspapers. In 1984 she created the cartoon character 'Hermoine the modern girl’, who first appeared in ''The Eye'' and then in the late 1980s as a weekly feature in the ''
Sunday Age ''The Age'' is a daily newspaper in Melbourne, Australia, that has been published since 1854. Owned and published by Nine Entertainment, ''The Age'' primarily serves Victoria (Australia), Victoria, but copies also sell in Tasmania, the Austral ...
'' and ''Sydney Morning Herald''. In 1988 Cooke compiled cartoons about Aboriginal people and racism by various cartoonists for ''Beyond a Joke: An Anti-Bicentenary Cartoon Book'' (published by McPhee Gribble/
Penguin Books Penguin Books Limited is a Germany, German-owned English publishing, publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers the Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the ...
). Of her cartoons, Cooke said in a ''geekgirl'' interview in 1996: "I’m learning to get a whole lot better at making stuff happen on computer, but I still really love drawing in old-fashioned pen and a bottle of the blacker-than-black waterproof ink – delicious." In c.1996–97 she wrote a weekly column in the ''Sydney Morning Herald''’s '
Good Weekend ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' (''SMH'') is a daily tabloid newspaper published in Sydney, Australia, and owned by Nine Entertainment. Founded in 1831 as the ''Sydney Herald'', the ''Herald'' is the oldest continuously published newspaper in A ...
’ magazine, whose illustrations she described as "bizarrely incongruous photographic vignettes of famous people such as Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Diana as joke self-portraits", while in 1999 she returned to using her own cartoons to illustrate her weekly column in ''
The Australian ''The Australian'', with its Saturday edition ''The Weekend Australian'', is a broadsheet daily newspaper published by News Corp Australia since 14 July 1964. As the only Australian daily newspaper distributed nationally, its readership of b ...
''. In 1997 she released a calendar printed on "paper" made from sugarcane pulp.


Works


Non-fiction books

''The Modern Girl's Guide to Everything'' (1986) ''Beyond a Joke: An Anti-Bicentenary Cartoon Book'' (1988) ''The Modern Girl’s Guide to Safe Sex'' (1988; revised edition 1993) ''Keep Yourself Nice: Kaz Cooke Answers Your Etiquette Problems'' (1990) ''The Modern Girls Are Strong Diary 1992: With Hermoine the Modern Girl'' (1991) ''Real Gorgeous: The Truth About Body and Beauty'' (1994) ''The Little Book of Stress'' (1996) ''Get a Grip'' (1996) ''Women's Trouble: Natural and Medical Solutions'' (with Ruth Trickey) (1998; revised edition 2000) ''The Little Book of Crap'' (with Simon Weazelpantz) (1998) ''Get Another Grip'' (1998) ''The Little Book of Dumb Feng Shui'' (1999) ''Up the Duff: The Real Guide to Pregnancy'' (1999; revised edition 2009) ''The Little Book of Beauty'' (2000) ''The Little Book of Household Madness'' (2000) '' Living with Crazy Buttocks'' (2001) ''The Little Book of Diet and Exercise'' (2001) ''The Baby Book: A Fun Scrapbook for the First Five Year''s (2002) ''Endometriosis: Natural and Medical Solutions'' (with Ruth Trickey) (2002) ''Menopause: Natural and Medical Solutions'' (with Ruth Trickey) (2002) ''Problem Periods: Natural and Medical Solutions'' (with Ruth Trickey) (2002) ''Kidwrangling: The Real Guide to Caring for Babies, Toddlers and Preschoolers'' (2003; revised edition 2010) ''The Little Book of Excuses'' (2003) ''Girl Stuff: Your Full-on Guide to the Teen Years'' (2007; second edition 2013) ''Women's Stuff'' (2011) ''Girl Stuff for Girls Aged 8–12: Your Real Guide to the Pre-teen Years'' (2016)


Ebooks

''Breast Health: Everything you Need to Know about Bosoms, Breast Lumps and Beyond'' (2013) ''Escaping Control and Abuse: How to Get Out of a Bad Relationship and Recover from Assault'' (2013) ''Menopause: How Not to Go Bonkers (And What to Do Instead)'' (2013) ''Mind Your Mental Health: Dealing With Moods, Grief, Depression, Anxiety, Eating Disorders and More'' (2013) ''Period Problems and Solutions: How to Get Out of Hormone Hell'' (2013) ''Pregnancy Decisions: Know Your Options'' (2013) ''Sex with the Lot: The Modern Woman's Guide to Her Own Sex Life'' (2013) ''Should You Immunise Your Kids?'' (2013)


Novels

''The Crocodile Club'' (1992) ''Ada'' (2017)


Children's books

''The Terrible Underpants'' (2000) ''Wanda-Linda Goes Berserk'' (2002)


Illustrator

Sharon O'Keefe, ''The Best-looking Women in Bondi Junction'' (1989)
Lola Montez Eliza Rosanna Gilbert, Countess of Landsfeld (17 February 1821 – 17 January 1861), better known by the stage name Lola Montez (), was an Irish dancer and actress who became famous as a Spanish dancer, courtesan, and mistress of King Ludw ...
, ''The Arts of Beauty, or, Secrets of a Lady's Toilet, with Hints to Gentlemen on the Art of Fascinating'' (1997) Mirabel Foundation, ''When the Children Arrive: A Resource Book for Carers'' (2001)


References


External links

*
Completely Gorgeous
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cooke, Kaz Australian columnists 1962 births Living people Jim Russell award winners Australian cartoonists 20th-century Australian artists