Kate Pullinger’s website offers an insight into the mind of a truly experimental writer
Kate Pullinger's website – unexpectedly stark
Kate Pullinger is the award-winning author of The Mistress of Nothing, Weird Sister and A Little Stranger, as well as short story collections My Life As a Girl In a Men’s Prison and Tiny Lies.
At first glance her website, www.katepullinger.com, seems completely at odds with her fiction writing. While the glowing, sumptuous descriptions kept me turning the pages of The Mistress of Nothing, her homepage is unexpectedly stark, with her name encapsulated within a bright red banner rimmed in blue against a black background, and the various tabs highlighting in white text when you hover your curser over the precise right place on the page.
There’s plenty of information presented in each tab, but it’s the presentation that’s the issue, with white text against a black background, live text showing in red.
However, Kate is a hugely experimental writer, and with that in mind her website design makes more sense.
The tab marked Digital leads to many of Kate’s most unique works, with links and info on some of her more extraordinary efforts. I particularly liked the idea of the online demo of Lifelines: “interactive short stories that bring texts alive on screen” via audio, video and imagery, although sadly the link didn’t seem to work, returning me instead to the homepage.
Despite being written in the third person, the News section is distinctly excitable, which made me warm to it, as missives exploded across the page declaring: “BIG NEW NEWS!!!!! NOVEMBER 17 2009: Kate has won the Governor General’s Award for Fiction for ‘The Mistress of Nothing‘!!!”
It’s heartwarming to realise that even a writer as successful and talented as Kate Pullinger still becomes so enthused by writing awards that she has to resort to caps and multiple exclamation marks to express her joy.
In search of more personal updates, I clicked on the blog tab and found myself in another world altogether. Design-wise it’s rather easier on the eyes, with black writing on a white background - a seriously underrated aesthetic.
Despite its public nature, the blog is entitled “My Secret Blog”, and there is a genuines sense of intimacy. In one recent entry Kate confesses that after completing The Mistress of Nothing she considered never writing another novel again. Thankfully, she’s since changed her mind and plans for the next grat text are underway.
Through the blog Kate shares many insights into the world of writing and book promotions, providing a wealth of firsthand experiences for aspiring authors to soak up.
Before leaving the blog I spotted one more interesting detail - plans for a complete overhaul of www.katepullinger.com. White, with a smattering of red, on black may soon be a thing of the past.
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I really agree with you about her blog section being easier on the eyes than the rest of the site. I have to say, the first thing that puts me off joining a new blog is the presentation and the ease of reading.