Cate Kennedy’s new shoots
July 21, 2009
As I’ve said before, Cate Kennedy has a new book coming out soon. It’s a novel, and I keep hearing from advance readers (those folks who get to snaffle up the advance copies of books that are sent out to bookshops, media and so on before they are actually in the shops) that it is a right cracker. Cate is well known as a short story writer of particular note, and her collection Dark Roots was widely acclaimed a couple of years back.
So I can’t wait to read this novel of hers, called The World Beneath, but I, like you, will have to wait till September to do so.
(Incidentally, Cate’s publisher is one of the great Oz independents – Scribe, which is doing excellent things with Australian fiction and particularly short fiction. Another of Scribe’s books to get your mitts on very soon is newcomer Patrick Cullen’s short story collection, What Came Between, out in August. He has been well published in anthologies for years, but this is Patrick’s first solo collection, and it’s bound to be good.)
But back to Cate. Apart from her writing (did I mention her amazing story for our Brothers & Sisters story collection, out in November?) she is a primary producer of another sort – garlic. A few weeks ago I got the lovely surprise of a heap of baby garlic in the post, sent by Cate after reading of my garlic-growing anxiety here ( I killed the other one, by the way).
Since then I’ve potted the bub bulbs into these peat pots, and as soon as the painters finish the frame of the bathroom window, directly above my new herb bed, these will go into the bed too. It’s the only spot in the garden that gets year-round sun, although only for a few hours a day in winter. Come summer though, that spot will be hot hot hot and perfect for herbs and, I hope, the garlic. So here’s to Cate, her Dark Roots and her New Shoots.
How to shuck an oyster 
Ah, clever post. I don’t know Cate’s work but will weed it out. Ha, killin’ myself with mirth. No, really. Will do. Garlic. What happened? Have been plotting new small plot garden based on an idea I saw reading the Australian Organic Gardening manual I have late last night.
Do tell about your garden plot? And yes do read Cate’s work. I think you’d dig it. boom boom.
[…] that garlic is coming along nicely in my garden as we speak, this one pictured here next to the tomatoes and […]
[…] I can’t put my finger on, that makes getting a jar of home-made pickles or biscuits – or a parcel of garlic shoots! – from the postman such a huge […]