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 newspaper published by News Corp Australia since 14 July 1964.Bruns, Axel. "3.1. The active audience: Transforming journalism from gatekeeping to gatew ...
'', ''
Who
Who or WHO may refer to:
* Who (pronoun), an interrogative or relative pronoun
* Who?, one of the Five Ws in journalism
* World Health Organization
Arts and entertainment Fictional characters
* Who, a creature in the Dr. Seuss book '' Horton He ...
'' 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 ...
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 unusua ...
. 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 (ABA) 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 association.
In 1985 t ...
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 illustrations ...
, illustrated by cartoonist
Ronald Searle
Ronald William Fordham Searle, CBE, RDI (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 S ...
, and Searle's St Trinian's School 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 '' The Idea of Perfectio ...
to the remote Northern Territory community of Manyallaluk, 66 kilometres north-east of
Katherine
Katherine, also spelled Catherine, and Catherina, other variations are feminine Given name, names. They are popular in Christian countries because of their derivation from the name of one of the first Christian saints, Catherine of Alexandria ...
, 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 Cleo may refer to:
Entertainment
* ''Cleo'' (magazine), an Australian magazine established in 1972, now active in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand
* Cleo (group), a South Korean girl group formed in 1999
* ''Cleo'' (play), by Lawren ...
''. 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 ...
'', and occasional opinion pieces for various other publications.
Cartoons
Cooke's early cartoons appeared in ''
The Cane Toad Times
''The Cane Toad Times'' was a satirical humour magazine based in Brisbane, Brisbane, Queensland. It was first published in the late 1970s, then revived under the same name by a new team from 1983–1990.
The two versions shared personnel and ...
'', ''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'' 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
McPhee Gribble was a Australian publishing firm, based in Carlton, Victoria. It became an imprint of the Penguin Group.
History
Founded by Di Gribble and Hilary McPhee in 1975 McPhee Gribble was the initial publisher of works by significant Au ...
/
Penguin Books
Penguin Books is a British 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 following year. 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 compact newspaper published in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, and owned by Nine. Founded in 1831 as the ''Sydney Herald'', the ''Herald'' is the oldest continuously published newspaper ...
’ 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 newspaper published by News Corp Australia since 14 July 1964.Bruns, Axel. "3.1. The active audience: Transforming journalism from gatekeeping to gatew ...
''. 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)
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 Ludwig ...
, ''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)