Kate Castleton is an Australian-American writer and public speaker who has won the National Book Prize twice for her novels The Times of the Cave and A Stranger in the Mirror. She has been called “the new Marlborough”; or more accurately, the inheritor of Marlborough’s mantle. Kate has written over twenty-five books of fiction; more than half of them are hybrid novels blending historical and myth elements with contemporary Australia. She has also written a children’s book entitled The Forest of Fear; a New Zealand version of The Time of the Ancient Marlborough. Kate was born in Epsom, New South Wales; the birth place of her late husband, John David Thoreau, who is a naturalist. It was while researching early childhood development that Kate discovered the existence of King George IV; she resolved to write a book on the subject so as to continue his work on marine biology, an interest which had begun early in his life.
Kate was encouraged to investigate the legal profession, and in doing so she found that there were two branches of the legal profession in the United States and Australia, with the federal government maintaining a vastly different approach to the regulation of the professions than was followed in either the states or the country as a whole. Kate did her best to remain true to her feminist beliefs about the treatment of women within the legal profession; however, there were still plenty of views that she could not fully support, such as the belief that women should be allowed a trial by jury of their choosing if they were accused of a crime. Kate eventually changed her views and supported the legal profession’s rights to remain neutral on this issue. This stance did not end the problems faced by women within the legal profession, but Kate did attempt to improve the conditions for women within the legal profession through the encouragement of reform movements.
Kate Castleton is one of the few female lawyers who have become internationally famous, although her case against the British Petroleum Company is still ongoing in the United Kingdom. As a writer Kate has traveled extensively throughout the world and has won several major awards for her work. Kate has also received several honors and prizes for her writing, most notably the Order of the British empire from Queen Elizabeth II for outstanding contribution to the British intellectual and literary community. Kate is still at work at the moment writing books and researching new areas of law and technology.