Kate Howarth (writer)
Kate Howarth (born 1950, Sydney) is an Aboriginal Australian writer whose memoir Ten Hail Marys was published by the University of Queensland Press in 2010. The sequel, Settling Day, was published in 2015.
Early life
Kate Howarth was raised by her grandmother and other relatives in Darlinghurst and rural N.S.W.[1] Howarth was taken out of school at age 14, believing then that her desires of one day becoming a writer were gone. When she fell pregnant at the age of 15, she was sent to the St Margaret's Home for Unwed Mothers in Sydney.[2] After giving birth, she resisted to give her son up for adoption and became one of the few women to leave the institution with her child.[3] The story of the first 17 years of her life is recounted in her memoir Ten Hail Marys, which challenges evidence taken at a Parliamentary inquiry into Adoption Practices in N.S.W. from 1950 to 1998.<ref name="MWF" In 2015 the long-awaited sequel to Ten Hail Mary's, Settling Day was published. Settling Day takes up where Ten Hail Mary's leaves off and follows Howarth's path from a homeless teen, to become the co-owner of Manpower Personnel Services, one of Australia's most successful companies. As it was with Ten Hail Mary's, Settling Day is a harrowing story, that will infuriate and amuse the readers in equal measure. Howarth pulls no punches to expose the shortcomings of a society when women and children were little more than chattels.
Books
Awards and nominations
Shortlisted
- 2008 - Queensland Premier's Literary Awards (David Uniapon Award) for Ten Hail Marys
- 2010 - Victorian Premier's Literary Award - Shortlisted for Indigenous Writing Award.
- 2010 - Won -The Age Non-Fiction Book of the Year