Katherine Margaret Ellis, MP (born 22 September 1977) is an Australian politician, representing the federal division of Adelaide for the Australian Labor Party since 2004. She served in multiple portfolios in the outer ministry of the 2007–13 federal Labor government and is now in shadow cabinet.
Ellis was born in Melbourne and grew up in rural South Australia in the Murray River town of Mannum where her mother worked as a teacher in the local primary school. Ellis moved to Adelaide for her secondary education, attending Daws Road High School. She enrolled but left without completing a Bachelor of International Studies at Flinders University. While enrolled at Flinders she was General Secretary of the Students Association and an editor of Empire Times. A member of the Australian Labor Party, she worked as a research officer for state and federal parliamentarians. Ellis is linked with the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association (SDA). She was a ministerial adviser to South Australian state minister Rory McEwen and then for the former Deputy Premier of South Australia, Kevin Foley.
Kate Ellis is an author of crime fiction, best known for a series of detective novels, which blend history with mystery, featuring policeman Wesley Peterson.
Ellis' first novel, The Merchant's House, published in 1998, received positive reviews and was chosen as one of the ten best summer reads by Woman's Weekly . She has since written eighteen more novels in this series, many to critical acclaim.
More recently, Ellis has written five novels set in Yorkshire as part of the Joe Plantagenet series.
Ellis has also written one historical crime novel, The Devil's Priest, which is set in 16th century Liverpool.
She was elected a member of The Detection Club in 2014 and is also a member of the Crime Writers Association.
Kate is a feminine given name. It may refer to:
Kate is a feminine given name and nickname. It is a short form of multiple feminine names, most notably Katherine but also Caitlin and others.
Katherine Anne "Kate" Austen is a fictional character on the ABC television series Lost, played by Canadian actress Evangeline Lilly. Before the pilot was shot during the writing phase, Jack Shephard (Matthew Fox) died when the group finds the cockpit and Kate was to emerge as the leader for the survivors, motivating them to build shelter and begin considering life as permanent residents of the island, however when it was decided he should survive, she was a second-in-command. In this original description for Kate, she was a slightly older woman separated from her husband, who went to the bathroom in the tail-section of the plane. However, that idea ended up being used for Rose Henderson (L. Scott Caldwell) and her husband Bernard Nadler (Sam Anderson). Kate is involved in a love triangle with Jack and Sawyer (Josh Holloway) and is seen as very protective of Claire (Emilie de Ravin) and her baby Aaron.
Born in 1977 and raised in Iowa, Kate is the daughter of diner worker Diane (Beth Broderick), and Sam (Lindsey Ginter), a U.S. Army Ranger and Gulf War Veteran. At an early age Kate's parents divorced, and Diane married an abusive alcoholic named Wayne Janssen (James Horan). As an adult, Kate killed Wayne, which she confessed to her mother before disappearing. Wayne had always been abusive to her mother, but Kate decided to kill him upon learning that he was her biological father. Diane called the authorities; thereafter Kate is pursued and ultimately arrested by Edward Mars (Fredric Lehne).