#adabook

Your Ada quote for the day. This is from a scene in which she deals with a Nineteenth Century mansplainer in a top hat. While touring bookshops, I’ve found that my new book is either on the front table, in a back corner, or slid surreptitiously, spine-out, onto a shelf in the ‘C’ section. The first time I had a C-section was shocking enough, thank you very much (boom boom!) If you can’t see Ada in the bookshop, please ask for her! #mansplainer #mansplaining #19thcentury #vaudeville #theatre #history #adabook #bookshops

Madame Abomah, billed as a "giantess" is another of the real vaudeville characters in my new book, Ada, coming out next week. In the first years of the 20th Century Madame Abomah (Ella Williams from South Carolina) performed as a singer in Australia. She appeared at Kreitmeyer's Waxworks in Bourke St, Melbourne and in country towns everywhere. She is said to have delayed going home because she was terrified of sea travel and knew she'd have to stay drunk from Sydney to San Francisco. Miss Williams was the first child of her family to be born after slavery was outlawed. She looks very dignified in every surviving photo and there is something deliciously defiant in the effect of wearing an aigret ostrich plume to make her appear even taller. More on Ada - http://bit.ly/2fo2c5K or kazcooke.com.au #madamabomah #abomah #giantess #vaudeville #performer #travellingshow #musichall #australianhistory #adabook #aigret #ostrichfeather #sequins #emancipation

“She might have the premier cockatoo act in the country but that’s no degree of integrity,” - Ada Delroy, on Madam Marzella. Marzella - or ‘that vinegar-beaked old fussock’, as Ada calls her is rather a villain in my new novel DELIVERED TO BOOKSHOPS TODAY (faints from excitement). If you fancy helping our Ada into the bestseller lists, please grab a copy in the next week or so. Apparently that’s how it works: I salute thee, bookshop order-ers, online pre-order-ers, early Christmas shoppers and in-like-Flynn types! Like every other character in the book, Madam Marzella really existed. I wonder how her “feathered mummers” - cookies, macaws, ravens, and galahs - regarded that tactless feather boa of hers? This newspaper clipping c1905 is in a theatre fan’s old scrapbook held at @library_vic More info on the book at kazcooke.com.au. #madammarzella #vaudeville #australianhistory #adabook #cockatoos #birdwatchers #birding #birdact #bookshops #books #christmasisCOMING

In 1896 a young telegraph clerk in Geelong kept a lively, illustrated diary of his life: this page records his night at the theatre to see Ada Delroy and her troupe perform her dances in a costume of 100 yards of silk (bottom right); the clairvoyant ‘White Mahatma’ act performed by Ada’s sister-in-law Alice, songs, and comedy sketches (a farce featuring a ‘dude’, a parent and a hero is shown). My novel based on Ada’s life is released this week in bookshops and as an ebook. (It’s called, ahem, Ada.) More info at kazcooke.com.au. Alexander Goodall’s diaries are part of the Manuscripts collection at the State Library of Victoria. @library_vic #trove @national_library_of_australia #cartoons #diary #1890s #australianhistory #adabook #dance #theatre

Hey, Brisbane! (And everyone else!) Here’s the real-life heroine of my book Ada (with parrot) on tour in India with the Ada Delroy Company in the 1890s: others in the photo include the stone-faced clairvoyant with a plume-hat Alice, dreamy facial-contortion-comedian Ed Ford, Lizzie the rapid-fire xylophone performer in a pith helmet and Bert the pianist. Come along and hear about Ada’s world. I’m bringing her back to Brisbane 129 years after her first performance there. Join me in at one of two evening events: 1. Tuesday 21 November @RiverbendBooks Bookings: https://riverbendbooks.com.au/events/meet-the-author-kaz-cooke 2. Wednesday 22 November @avidreaderbookshop Bookings: http://avidreader.com.au/events/kaz-cooke-ada #adabook @penguinbooksaus #brisbane #brisbanetheatre #brisbanehistory #brisbanebooks #bookevent #books #vintagephotographs #theatretroupe #travellers #familytroupe #familybusiness #ontour #clairvoyant #comedian #singer #dancer