We hear you left school at sixteen to become a writer – how did you parents feel about that?
Yes, it’s true. The only examination I’ve passed is my cervical smear test. I’m an autodidact. It means self taught. Clearly it’s a word I taught myself! I was a straight-A student, (well apart from math, and that’s because men were always telling me that six inches was really ten!) so my parents were devastated. But I was an inmate of Sylvania High Maximum Security Prison and bored out of my brain. I wanted to become a writer and needed to get out into the world to soak up experience.

It certainly paid off – you wrote your first novel, cult-classic Puberty Blues, with Gabrielle Carey at the age of 17. What can you tell us about that time?
I’m currently enduring my fourth puberty. First there was my actual puberty, then the book, then the Bruce Beresford film, and then the TV series. As I’m now menopausal, it’s terribly hormonally confusing! But I’m very proud of that little book. And the new TV series has captured the era perfectly. It’s like a home movie. I’m torn between hilarity and nausea to the point of projectile vomiting! The series brilliantly portrays the sexism of the time. The boys I grew up with disproved the theory of evolution – they were evolving into apes. They also thought ‘sex drive’ meant doing it in the car – possibly because of that little sign in the rear vision mirror that said ‘Objects in this mirror may appear larger than they are’. Women were little more than a life support system to a pair of breasts. The book is like straight Vegemite, no butter. It’s also a literary contraceptive!

You obviously felt the urge to write from a very early age, but what else can you tell us about Kathy Lette as a child?
I grew up in The Shire, or as we call it, the Insular Peninsular. We were surrounded by bush and beach and bays. The most dangerous thing for a mile around was a bad prawn. It was rather idyllic – until we were taken hostage by our hormones and became submissive surfie chicks. My mum was a headmistress and a very innovative teacher (she was also the only mother on my street who had a full-time job) and my dad was an engineer. His name was Mervyn. He worked in optic fibre. We called him Optic Merve. Plus I have three fabulous sisters, which is why I think women are each other’s human Wonder Bras – uplifting, supportive and making each other look bigger and better.

Since Puberty Blues you have penned another 13 books, including How to Kill Your Husband (and other handy household tips) and your most recent novel, Courting Trouble. Do you have a favourite, or is that like asking you to choose a favourite child?
Yes it is like choosing a favourite child! I loved writing How to Kill Your Husband as it was so cathartic. Men, take note, it is in your interest to do a little light housework, as it’s scientifically proven that no woman ever shot her husband while he was vacuuming! Foetal Attraction and Mad Cows are also close to my heart, being so autobiographically honest about the horrors of pregnancy and childbirth (stretching your vagina the customary five kilometres) and breastfeeding (you are ‘meals on heels’) but my latest, Courting Trouble is my favourite. It’s set in the world’s first mother/daughter, two person, boutique feminist law firm, where they only take on women’s cases and causes.

You have cited a career highlight as once teaching Stephen Fry a word. What was the word?
Misogamist – an allergy to marriage. But now that he’s discovered his alter ego, and married lovely Elliott, he won’t be needing it.

You’ll be making your way to Brisbane for the Women of the World festival on June 19–21, where audiences will be grilling you at Ask Kathy Anything. Have you done something like this before?
I’m going to strip off to my emotional undies – and it’ll be a psychological striptease that reveals all! And yes, people can ask me anything, except how old I am. Like Rebel Wilson, I’m approaching 30, but I’m not saying from what direction!

What is the strangest question you’ve ever been asked?
Are you named after a cafe latte?

You’ll also be on the panel for Singing the Blues: From Puberty to Menopause with Jane Turner and Brenna Harding, discussing everything from panel vans and tongue kissing to gender equality and feminism. Do you have any pearls of wisdom to share with our readers?
Never wait to be rescued by a knight in shining Armani. Learn to stand on your own two stilettos.

What’s your idea of complete happiness?
Surfing with my sisters, down the coast, shrieking to shore holding hands like four demanded Gidgets. Or surfing my brain waves with my comedic coven – Ruby Wax, Jo Brand, Sandi Toksvig, Jane Turner, Gina Riley and Jean Kittson – before we swing from the chandelier, champagne quaffing.

What inspires you?
Female solidarity and sisterhood.What annoys you?
Misogyny.

As well as your best-selling novels (some of which have been adapted for film and TV series), you have achieved so much, including being a newspaper columnist and TV sitcom writer, and an ambassador for Women and Children First, Plan International and the White Ribbon Alliance. Many of us would call this ‘success’, but what does success personally mean to you?
When a reader writes to me to say that one of my books helped her laugh her way through adversity or emboldened her to make a change in her life. That makes me feel as though I’ve put the pen into penicillin.