GRETEL KILLEEN
writer, artist, social/political commentator
Nora Fawn's daughter, Hope, disappeared four years ago. Nora has never known why. Refusing to answer her mother's calls, emails or texts Hope maintained contact only with her big sister Joy. Having once considered her mothering to be the greatest achievement of her life Nora’s spent these Hope-less years searching, aching, mother-guilting, working for a famous yet talentless artist and avoiding her own emotionally repressed mother, Daphne.
But ... last night Hope rang out of the blue to say, ‘I’m coming home, I’m getting married, the wedding is in three weeks and it’s your job to organise it.’
Desperate to prove her worth as a mother and regain her daughter’s love, Nora commits to the task - assisted by her own increasingly dementia’d mother and her two best friends Soula (an amateur bikini line waxer) and Thilma (whom they found in a cab in the 1980’s).
My Daughter’s Wedding is both hilarious and profound as it explores three generations of mother daughter love – its confounding complexity, its wild terrain, its mountains, its valleys, its quicksand.
Published by Hachette in February 2021. Available at all good book stores or by clicking on the button below.
The Zebra Who Lost Its Spots is a modern day fable about love, courage and difference and how complete freaking nutters get to rule the world. Written by best-selling author, Gretel Killeen, this work was commenced shortly after the election of Donald Trump in the USA, written during the ongoing struggle for the rights of asylum seekers, and completed shortly after the Australian survey on marriage equality which ultimately led to the nation’s legalisation of Same Sex marriage.
With the global onslaught the COVID pandemic this book has became increasingly prophetic - exploring a world of difference, conflict, climate devastation and disease, heroism and hope.
Written for both the young and wizened the fable works on several levels. Optimistically poetic it is the story of Zeb, a spotted zebra. Born into a society of striped conservatism and prejudice, Zeb's striped family must choose between their comfort and security, and Zeb's life. Blessed with an interim solution the family successfully disguises Zeb's difference until circumstances force their hand. What follows is at once a delightful tale, an extraordinary insight into the evolution of persecution and a message of hope with bad drawings. The Zebra Who Lost Its Spots is funny, profound and a little bloody frightening in its truth and prescience.