Signed copies of Get Up Mum are back in stock via my SHOP. I’ll be at my old haunt Canberra launching my old Uni’s writing anthology Analecta. Monday Nov 19, 7pm. Smith’s Alternative Bookstore. Details HERE.
Category Archives: News
World Mental Health Day
Every day is World Mental Health Day at my house. Take heart everyone. You are always stronger than you think. People aren’t thinking mean things about you. That’s just you being too hard on yourself. : )
Aimee Mann released an album last year called ‘Mental Illness’ – the best name check since ‘Thank God For Mental Illness’ by The Brian JonesTown Massacre. This is a great song with a lot of cat in it.
Love Your Bookshop / Gado Gado!
I’ll be appearing at Brunswick Bound from 3pm today signing copies of Get Up Mum and generally looking well-read. I may even give away this educational basketball card.
I’m the “lunch” feature in The Age today. I can’t remember what I said because I was hungry. We dined at my favourite Indonesian restaurant Yuni’s Kitchen. (I studied Indonesian in grade 7 and can still sing ten green bottles: “Sepuluh botol hijau, di atas pagar!”) My favourite dish is Gado Gado (a rad salad with peanut sauce, egg, tofu and crunchy bits) – I like to sing it to the tune of ‘G’day G’day’ by Slim Dusty.
Why not kick off Love Your Bookshop Day by revisiting Bjork at her bookish best.
“A good book is the precious distillation of a master spirit, embalmed and preserved for the purpose of achieving a life beyond life – which is why it is, undoubtedly, a necessary commodity.” Florence Green, The Bookshop.
(Mate, I’ve been saying that for years.)
#loveyourbookshopday
Melbourne & Brisbane Writers Festivals
Get Up Mum has gone into a second printing. Thanks everyone for your support, retail and otherwise. 
Check out the latest promo video featuring excerpts from Montello Primary School Book Week 1992!
Get Up Mum will be relaunched at Melbourne Writers Festival Sunday September 2. I’ll be conducting a service in memory of my child self. Tickets available HERE. I’ll be appearing on a panel at Brisbane Writers Festival Sunday September 9. Tickets available HERE.
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Brisbane / Sydney launches
Snavel a possie at the Get Up Mum Brisbane launch at Avid Reader Bookshop this Friday and be wowed and dazzled. Come for the insight, stay for the Le Snaks. There will be mental health, show ‘n tell and quizzically handsome gentlemen. Hosted by David Stavanger. Click HERE for Facebook event.
And the winner is…SYDNEY when I rock up with my treasure-trove cavalcade of nineties delicacies. Featuring Moroder ballads, bickie n dip, Benjamin Law & my childhood. We’re taking it one memoir at a time and reading is the real winner on the day. Better Read Than Dead, Thu July 19, 6:30. Click HERE for Facebook event.
Get Up Mum out May 21
I have a new book coming. It’s a memoir about my childhood. Think Angela’s Ashes meets The Castle. The Melbourne launch is Sunday June 10 at Northcote Uniting Church. I will be conducting a service in honour of my child self. All welcome. Men bring a plate.
For Book Week in 1991 the theme was ‘Book Into The Future.’ Get Up Mum is a time capsule crossed with a time machine. This is one of the first songs I wrote, ahead of its time.
Do The Nerd Out
I made up a hand gesture for the summer Smith Journal. (illo by Indigo O’Rourke.) My new book Get Up Mum will be released by Affirm in June.
Phone Boxes
Wake In Fright review
I micro-reviewed the Australian classic for The Lifted Brow a few years back.
204 pages – feels like a short read.
Schoolteacher goes on a dark bender in an Australian desert town.
Mood: Hot, dark and claustrophobic. The hazy mash of inebriation. Trapped in a car with foul men. Face to face with a stabbed kangaroo.
Best sentence: Things half remembered and terribly feared, shrieked at him; tears of mystic terror rimmed his eyes.
Previous review: “A classic novel which became a classic film. The Outback without the sentimental bulldust. Australia without the sugar coating.” Robert Drewe
Funfact: A keen amateur lepidopterist, Cook established the first butterfly farm in Australia on the banks of Sydney’s Hawkesbury River in the 1970s.
Best Australianism: “What the blazes…”
Suggested food pairings: Overdone steak from a hot bonnet. Lashing of cold beer.
Frankie Anthology
Four of my columns are featured in Frankie’s new anthology ‘Something To Say.’ I talk about graffiti, grandpas and growing down.
