Kathryn Marie Lette is an Australian-British author whose works have been bestsellers.
Life and career
Born in Sydney's southern suburbs, she first attracted attention in 1979 as the co-author of Puberty Blues, a strongly autobiographical, proto-feminist teen novel about two 13-year-old southern suburbs girls attempting to improve their social status by ingratiating themselves with the "Greenhills gang" of surfers. The book was made into a film in 1981 and a TV series in 2012. Lette appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald of 20 August 1978 pictured in Martin Place with her friend Gabrielle Carey in an article titled "Buskers Lose Freak Tag". A young Lette stood up for buskers' rights not to be moved on as Sydney City Council enforced a 1919 Act of Parliament in New South Wales. As an adult, Lette became a newspaper columnist and sitcom writer, but returned to the novel form with Girls' Night Out in 1988 and has since written several more novels and plays, including Foetal Attraction, Mad Cows in 1996 and Dead Sexy. Lette left Australia for the United Kingdom in 1988 and took full British citizenship in 2011. Lette lives in the London Borough of Camden. She has two children with fellow Australian expatriate, Geoffrey Robertson, whom she met while still married to Kim Williams, when appearing on Robertson's TV panel debate show Hypotheticals. Julius has Asperger syndrome: he has embarked on a career as an actor, and plays the character of Jason Haynes in Holby City. Lette and Robertson separated in 2017. In 2007, Lette published the book How to Kill Your Husband which was turned into an opera in 2011 by composer Alan John and playwright Timothy Daly; it was premiered at the Victorian Opera, conducted by Richard Gill. The same year, she briefly appeared on Sunrise as a London correspondent, a part of the Global Notebook. In 2008, Lette published To Love, Honour & Betray , a romantic novel with hints of comedy. With Jessica Adams, Maggie Alderson and Imogen Edwards-Jones, Lette edited an anthology by prominent women writers of erotic short-stories, In Bed with..., including contributions from Louise Doughty, Esther Freud, Ali Smith, Joan Smith, Rachel Johnson and Fay Weldon, each publishing under a pseudonym. In April 2009, Lette contributed to the fourth issue of the literary magazine Notes from the Underground with a piece honouring her close friend John Mortimer. In November 2009, she received an honorary doctorate from Southampton Solent University. Lette teamed with Radox to write a water-resistant book, which was released free online in September 2009, with an aim to encourage women to be selfish with their time. Lette supports the UK Labour Party. In August 2014, she was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to The Guardian expressing their hope that Scotland would vote to remain part of the United Kingdom in September's referendum on that issue. In recognition of her many novels and advocacy of equality, human rights, and physical and mental health both nationally and internationally, Lette was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Letters from the University of Wollongong on Thursday 20 April 2017.
