Kate Jennings

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Catherine Ruth Jennings, known as Kate Jennings, was an Australian writer (1948–2021). She was a poet, essayist, memoirist, and novelist. She was born on 20 May 1948 in Temora, New South Wales, and grew up on a farm near Griffith.

She studied at the University of Sydney in the late 1960s and earned a BA with honours. She joined feminist and left‑wing groups. In 1970 she gave a famous speech before a Vietnam Moratorium march, which helped start Australia’s second wave of feminism. She edited Mother I'm Rooted, a book of poems by women that sparked controversy.

Jennings moved to New York City in 1979. She wrote for magazines and newspapers and even worked as a speechwriter on Wall Street. In 1983 she met Bob Cato; they married in 1987. He died in 1999.

Her novels brought her particular fame. Her first novel, Snake, received strong praise and nearly made the Booker shortlist. Moral Hazard won the Christina Stead Prize for fiction and was shortlisted for several prizes. Both Snake and Moral Hazard were named New York Times Notable Books.

She also published Stanley and Sophie in 2008, a memoir about her dogs and life in New York after 9/11, and Trouble in 2010, a collection of her best work from the past decades.

Jennings was known for outspoken essays on fiction, feminism, finance, and language. Critics called her a fearless truth‑teller. She died on 1 May 2021 in New York City, at the age of 72.