Like many women, Karin Cox is doing her best to be a modern superwoman (minus the cape and the shiny gold crown).
Trained as a professional editor, and with more than fourteen years in the trade publishing industry under her belt, she edits and writes in her “spare time” while being a fulltime Mum to her infant daughter and to a black cat with the improbable name of “Ping Pong.” Thankfully, the busier she gets, the more creative she is (and the more likely to afford to hire a housekeeper).
As well as writing poetry, short stories and young adult fiction, Karin writes non-fiction and children’s fiction for Australian publisher Steve Parish Publishing.
Karin and her partner live in sunny Queensland, Australia, where she writes from her back deck overlooking the pool, her study (overlooking her framed Whitley Awards for natural history writing) or her couch (overlooking Dr Phil).
BOOKS
What happens when life doesn’t turn out as planned? This collection of two evocative stories (each with a surprising twist) explores the choices and compromises we make in life and in love, and how they can trap or liberate us, depending on our mindset. Each story comes with an unexpected twist that makes reading all the way to the end imperative.
In Cage Life, first published in 2010 as “Still Life”, a young mum feels like a prisoner in her own home. Her decision to escape the bonds of marriage and motherhood, just for a few hours, has unexpected consequences that force her to a re-evaluate what it really means to be loved, to be married, and to be free.
In The Usurper, unconditional love is explored within the boundaries of age and longing. Basil is in his eighties, with an illustrious career in law enforcement behind him, when he meets Carla — a beautiful, energetic and much younger mistress. But when Simon appears on the scene, can Basil keep her or does she, in fact, keep him?
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If the poet’s job is to provide a reflection of an entire world in a single teardrop, Karin Cox’s haunting anthology, Growth, does so admirably.
This collection of her finest poems—some previously published in anthologies around the world, others new; some rhyming, some free form—delivers beautiful sentiments, melancholy moments and some delightfully lyrical figurative language, all the while charting the poet’s personal growth over several years.
While introspective, Karin’s work avoids self-obsession by interspersing political and broader global themes with the personal. What results is a whimsical anthology that brings to mind the challenges of just being human and fitting into a world that sometimes feels like a tight squeeze.
A must-read for lovers of the English language and a wonderful gift for poetry aficionados, Growth will continue to bloom in the reader’s mind long after the last page has been turned.
