Kathleen McGowan was born in Hollywood, California (March 22, 1963) into a family with strong television and film ties. Her grandmother was a pioneer in communications at NBC and her mother worked as a publicist. Her own career in entertainment began when she was a union liaison for Universal Studios in the 1980s. In 1991, she went to work for The Walt Disney Company where she stayed until 1996.
Ms McGowan optioned several feature film scripts before shifting her writing skills to fiction. In 2006, her first novel, The Expected One, became an instant international bestseller and the sequels, The Book of Love and The Poet Prince, followed suit in 2008 and 2009. A series based on this fiction trilogy is in the works. Her non-fiction book, The Source of Miracles, was on Oprah's Holiday List in 2010.
Ms McGowan began working in television on multiple History Channel properties in 2011 and has contributed and appeared on over forty episodes across seven shows as an authority on history and folklore. She is known as one of the world's leading experts on the life of Mary Magdalene, and has studied her and related subjects of women in history and spirituality on four continents over 25 years.
She is the mother of actor Shane Francis Smith.
