Kate Jennings

Kate Jennings (born 20 May 1948) is an Australian poet, essayist, memoirist, and novelist.

Life

Jennings grew up on a farm near Griffith, New South Wales. She attended Sydney University in the late 1960s, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree with honors. She was active in feminist and left wing-movements, in particular gaining notoriety for an incendiary speech given before a Vietnam Moratorium march in 1970 — a speech that is credited as signaling the beginning of the second wave of feminism in Australia.

She also edited "Mother I’m Rooted", a pioneer anthology of women poets which was the object of much controversy.

She moved to New York City in 1979, where she wrote for numerous magazines and newspapers, as well as doing a stint on Wall Street as a speechwriter. In 1983, she met [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Cato Bob Cato] cite web |title= "New York Times" March 20, 1999, obituary by Nick Ravo |publisher= NY Times|url= http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F10F10FE39550C738EDDAA0894D1494D81 |accessdate= 1999-03-20 ] , a ground-breaking graphic designer, photographer, and collagist who helped turn the record album into an important form of contemporary art. They were married in 1987; he died in March, 1999. [1]

Her brother, Dare, was the creative force behind the successful Mambo clothing empire. His latest venture is Deus Ex Machina, a motorcycle and clothing business.

Works

[http://margaretconnolly.com/writers-photographs/kate-jennings.jpgKate Jennings portrait]

Her poetry and short stories were well received, but she came into her own with her novels. Her first, "Snake" was described variously as “lethal and fast-moving” (Publishers Weekly), “a narrative of pure anguish” (Times Literary Supplement), and “possessing a holographic shimmer” (New York Times Book Review). It was reported to have just missed the Booker Prize shortlist. "Moral Hazard" has been called “humane and unsparing; witty, unsettling, and wildly intelligent” by Shirley Hazzard, author of T"he Transit of Venus".

Jennings was awarded the Christina Stead Prize for fiction for "Moral Hazard", which was also shortlisted for the 2003 Miles Franklin Award, the Los Angeles Times Fiction Prize, and the Tasmania Pacific Region Prize. "Snake" was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, as was Moral Hazard.

Both books contain strong autobiographical elements, "Snake" being about a girl growing up on a Riverina farm in the 1950s, and "Moral Hazard" about a couple facing Alzheimer's in the husband while the wife works as a speechwriter on Wall Street. 


In 2008, she published "Stanley and Sophie", a memoir ostensibly about her dogs but also about life in New York City after 9/11, politics in the U.S. and her encounters with two macaques in Bali at the time of the 2005 bombing there.

Jennings is also known for writing outspoken essays and op-eds on the state of fiction, the direction of feminism, malfeasance in the financial industry, and the abuse of language in the business world. Andrew Field, a prominent Nabokov scholar, describes Jennings as a “ferocious truth-teller, He also cites her “humor, her obdurate individuality, and her willingness to say what other people won’t.”

Awards

Bibliography

Articles

* [http://www.strategy-business.com/press/article/14601?pg=0 "Best Business Books of the Millennium: Business Novels"] , "Strategy+Business" Q4 2001

*"Gutless Fiction" Australian Financial Review August 26th, 2005

*"The Serious Business of Literature" Los Angeles Times Book Review May 11, 2003

*"Less is More" " Prospect magazine February 2003

*"To Hell with the Future" Australian Financial Review May, 2009

*" [http://www.businesswriters.com.au/media/tbw_sample.pdf "Letting in the Sunlight"] " The Business Writer

Essays

*"Save Me, Joe Louis" (1998)
*"Bad Manners" (1993)

Novels

*"Snake" (1996)
*"Moral Hazard" (2002)

Op-Eds

*"Doublethink on Wall Street" Financial Times May 10, 2002

*"The Hypocrisy of Wall Street Culture" New York Times July 14, 2002

*"Among the Strong and the Shrewd" Australian Financial Review May 2, 2003

hort Story Collections

*"Women Falling Down in the Street" (1990)

Poetry

*"Come to Me My Melancholy Baby" (1975)
*"Cats, Dogs and Pitchforks" (1993)

Edited

*"Mother I'm Rooted" (1975)

Autobiography

*"Stanley and Sophie" (2008)

Notes

External Links

* [http://www.randomhouse.com.au/Authors/Default.aspx?Page=Author&ID=Jennings,%20Kate Kate Jennings at Random House Australia]
* [http://www.mwaf.com.au/html/mainnav/writers.html Mildura Writer's Festival]
* [http://www.emsah.uq.edu.au/awsr/recent/133/awbr133.doc Kate Jennings. Interview with Julie McCrossin] . Radio National, Life Matters. Thursday 23 May 2002.
* [http://www.themonthly.com.au/tm/node/1026 Interview with Elliot Perlman] , May, 2008

Reviews of Snake
*" [http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/05/11/reviews/970511.shields.html "Scenes from a Mismarriage"] Carol Shields, New York Times Book Review, May 11, 1997"

*"Snake" Review by Michelle Huneven, Los Angeles Times, July 27, 1997"

*"Snake Classic" Review by Evelyn Juers Australian Book Review August 1996"

Reviews of Moral Hazard
* [http://www.newstatesman.com/200204150047 Moral Hazard] Amanda Craig New Statesman, April 15, 2002 "

*"American Life and Casualty Review by Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post, June 13, 2002"

*"Moral Hazard" Review by Review by Charles Taylor, Salon, June 20, 2002"

*"Moral Hazard" Review by Amanda Lohrey, The Age, 18/05/2002"

Review of Stanley and Sophie

*"Dog Days and New York Nights by Michelle de Kretser The Age 5/3/2008"