Films/Videos Without Gorky 2011 In Without Gorky (2011), the artist's granddaughter, Cosima Spender, directs her filmmaking skills to explore her own family. Ashile Gorky (1904-1948) was a survivor of the Armenian Genocide, who, after his mother died of starvation, made his way to the US, changed his name and began to study art and develop his own style of abstract expressionism. The last years of Ashile's life were difficult and therefore difficult for his young wife, Agnes Magruder, who endured the man's mood swings and likekly violence. After Ashile killed himself, Agnes sent her 2 young daughters off to boarding school in Switzerland for 6 months while she traveled Europe. Natasha was only 3 and still angry with her mother 63 years later about being abandoned, such was the impact. External Website

News - broadcast, print, internet, magazine articles Ward of the State; The Gap in Ella Fitzgerald's Life Nina Bernstein 1996 Those literary orphans who aren’t totally crushed by their own predicaments may find themselves freed of any limitation whatsoever. They transform. Starting as J. M. Barrie’s “children who fall out of their perambulators when the nurse is looking the other way,” they turn into the Lost Boys! Moll Flanders becomes American; Helen Oyeyemi’s Snow White becomes African-American. Orphans discover that they’re the scion of a wizardly family, Kal-El of Krypton, the last of the Jedi, or the mother of the Kwisatz Haderach. They seize their birthrights by the hilt to become Arthur, the Once and Future King. The literary orphan belongs to no world except that of narrative opportunity. External Website

News - broadcast, print, internet, magazine articles Hutchinson Heinemann signs Fagan's 'extraordinary' memoir in two-book deal Jenni Fagan 2022 Hutchinson Heinemann has signed Ootlin, a memoir by writer Jenni Fagan, in a two-book deal. Publishing director Ailah Ahmed acquired UK and Commonwealth rights from Tracy Bohan at The Wylie Agency. The memoir will be published in hardback, e-book and audio on 24th August 2023. External Website

Blogs/Web Pages/Articles A Conversation about Tracy Beaker... Rosie Canning 2018 Back in early 2018, Rosie Canning started a conversation on Social Media about Tracy Beaker which kick-started a whole negative portrayals conversation and led to conversations with Jacqueline Wilson, the author. 'There are already a huge amount of negative care stereotypes in fiction, an over-abundance of kids from care or adopted who become serial killers in crime fiction. If writers must use ‘other’, then carrying out impeccable research and making a story believable, rather than lazy use of a stereotype, is a must.' Read the exciting follow-up to this conversation here. External Website

Performing Arts American Singer, songwriter, actress Debbie Harry Deborah Ann Harry (born Angela Trimble;1945) is an American singer, songwriter and actress, known as the lead vocalist of the band Blondie. Born in Miami, Florida, Harry was adopted as an infant and raised in Hawthorne, New Jersey. After attending college, she worked various jobs, including as a secretary (including at the BBC in New York), dancer, and Playboy Bunny, before breaking through in the music industry. Harry co-formed Blondie in 1974 in New York City. The band released their eponymous debut album in 1976, and released a further three albums between then and 1979, including Parallel Lines, which spawned six singles, including "Heart of Glass". Their fifth record, Autoamerican (1980), afforded Harry and the band further attention, spawning such hits as a cover of "The Tide Is High", and "Rapture", the latter of which is considered the first rap song to chart at number one in the United States.In 1981, Harry released her debut solo album, KooKoo, and, during a hiatus of Blondie, embarked on an acting career, appearing in lead roles in the neo-noir Union City (1980) and in David Cronenberg's body horror film Videodrome (1983). External Website

Plays & Musicals featuring Care Exp Mommie Dearest Christina Crawford 2017 An adaptation of Christina Crawford's 1978 memoir in which she describes considerable abuse at the hands of adoptive mother, American film star Joan Crawford. External Website

Children's Fiction Being Billy Phil 2011 Billy has spent 8 years in a care home feeling angry with everyone and everything. Only his siblings keep him going. External Website

Authors X The Autobiography of Malcolm X ➝ Back to Top

Writers Richard Hoggart 1918-2014 Herbert Richard Hoggart (1918 – 2014) was a British academic whose career covered the fields of sociology, English literature and cultural studies, with emphasis on British popular culture. Richard Hoggart was born in Leeds, Yorkshire to an impoverished family. His father, a housepainter and former soldier, died when Richard was only one year old. His mother died when he was eight. The family of three children were then separated and Richard was taken to live with his grandmother. Richard hadn’t completed his Masters thesis before he was called up to serve in the Royal Artillery during the second world war. In the post-war years, Hoggart taught at Hull University for 13 years. He published his first book, a study of WH Auden’s poetry, in 1951 and then, after the publication of his much-acclaimed work, The Uses of Literacy, he taught English at the University of Leicester. In 1962, Hoggart was the founder and first director of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham. External Website

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Films/Videos A Thousand and One 2023 A Thousand and One is a 2023 American drama film written and directed by A.V. Rockwell in her feature directorial debut. The film stars Teyana Taylor, Will Catlett, Josiah Cross, Aven Courtney, and Aaron Kingsley Adetola. Set in the 1990s and 2000s, it follows a single mother, convicted thief, Inez de la Paz who returns to the Brooklyn neighborhood of her former shelter, where she sees her son, Terry, with other children from his foster home out on the street. When Terry is hospitalized after trying to escape from the home, Inez secretly visits him. He tells her about his earliest memory: of Inez abandoning him on a street corner when he was two years old - triggering Inez’s own memories of a childhood in the care system. She decides to kidnap her son out of the foster care system to raise him herself, as the two struggle with life in a constantly changing New York City. It had its world premiere at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival on January 22, 2023, and won the Grand Jury Prize. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience The Late Train to Gipsy Hill Alan Johnson 2021 As a teenager, Alan Johnson (b. 1950) wanted to become a writer, but he ended up as a member of the British parliament. He finally took up writing after he retired from politics, publishing his first memoir to critical acclaim in 2014. In this he talks about being raised by his single mum, and after she dies when he is 13, by his older sister. Alan Johnson's first work of fiction, is a thriller The Late Train to Gipsy Hill, published in 2021. Appropriately, the hero is a young man raised by a single mother. There is, too, a character who was raised in care - in Russia. Unfortunately, (because its a stereotype) Miranchuk is a thug, a clever man who loves violence and who has recently made a commitment to join the 3rd of the 3 key Russian organisations, the Krovnyye Bratya or an organised crime group (the other options are the military and the secret service) which, writes, Johnson, all interconnected anyway. The Late Train to Gipsy Hill is a timely - because of the invasion of Ukraine - thriller, fast paced and well written. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience Innocent Blood P.D. James 2011 If you are a PD James fan, I should say up front that Innocent Blood is very different from the Adam Dalgliesh detective series. It is a psychological thriller, a slow-building mystery which starts with little steps then, as the odd details start to make sense, the tension builds. It is the story of a young woman who knows she is adopted, who exercises her right to know the names of her birth parents, and finds something she never in a million years expected. External Website

Academic Articles What "The Mandalorian" Teaches Us About Foster Care Sophia Alexandra Hall 2021 Sophia Alexandra Hall went into foster care as a teenager and was cared for by her local authority until leaving at 18 to attend the University of Oxford. Here she writes about the 'The Madalorianan' an American space Western television series created by Jon Favreau beginning five years after the events of Return of the Jedi (1983). It stars Pedro Pascal as the title character, a lone bounty hunter who goes on the run after being hired to retrieve "The Child". Hall writes: "Finally, a story that portrays family as something that can be chosen, made up of those that care for you and not just the blood running through your veins. In the final scene of Season 2 of The Mandalorian, Mando reassures Grogu (AKA Baby Yoda) that it is okay to leave with his new guardian. As a former foster care kid, this was an all-too familiar scene. Having had multiple foster homes in the space of a few years, I had to deal with the introduction of new guardians on a regular basis. Forming personal bonds with my carers, ultimately only to have to leave, was a crushing reality I faced repeatedly throughout my childhood." External Website

Academic Books & Book Chapters Representing Aboriginal Childhood The Politics of Memory and Forgetting in Australia Joanne Faulkner 2023 Representing Aboriginal Childhood: The Politics of Memory and Forgetting in Australia (2023) by by Australian academic Joanne Faulker investigates ways in which Aboriginal children have been represented over the decades. Faulker uses literature and film, as well as public discourse including from the government and by news outlets, to show that representations of Aboriginal children tend to occlude colonial violence. Reference to Jedda (1955) is made and to the Bringing them Home Report (1997) about the separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from their families. External Website

Blogs/Web Pages/Articles Constance Couronne: From Enslaved Child in Mauritius to Emancipated Convict Grandmother in New South Wales Convicts, Creolization & Cosmopolitanism in the British & French Empires 2022 British historian Clare Anderson has written more information on the situation of 9-year old enslaved girl Constance Couronne who was transported from one British colony to another in 1834. The blog includes a transcript of 9-year-old Constance’s convict record for when she’d been sent to NSW in 1834. Constance Couronne was transported from Mauritius to Australia with her cousin 12-year-old Elizabeth Verloppe. They were first sent to the Female Factory in Parammatta before being assigned as servants to Henry Wilson, Sydney’s First Police Magistrate External Website

Television Shows Archie 2023 Archie (2023) is a 4 part biographical drama telling the story of Archibald Alec Leach who became known as the debonair actor Cary Grant (1904-1986). Cary Grant was born in England, in a suburb of Bristol. When he was 9, his father had his mother institutionalised and a year later abandoned Archie who lived with his grandmother. As a teenager, Archie joined an acrobatic troupe and travelled with them to New York. When the troupe went home, Archie stayed in the US and became Cary Grant. Archie is an adaptation of a memoir by Dyan Cannon, Grant’s 4th wife. Jason Isaacs plays Cary Grant. External Website

Writers Bertrand Russell 1872-1970 Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British polymath, philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, writer, social critic, political activist, and Nobel laureate. Russell was born into the British aristocracy. His mother died when he was 2 and his father 2 years later. From then his paternal grandmother had the primary care of the child. Throughout his life, Russell considered himself a liberal, a socialist and a pacifist, although he sometimes suggested that his sceptical nature had led him to feel that he had "never been any of these things, in any profound sense". He is considered one of the founders of analytic philosophy along with his predecessor Gottlob Frege, colleague G. E. Moore and protégé Ludwig Wittgenstein. He is widely held to be one of the 20th century's premier logicians. With A. N. Whitehead he wrote Principia Mathematica, an attempt to create a logical basis for mathematics, the quintessential work of classical logic. His philosophical essay "On Denoting" has been considered a "paradigm of philosophy". His work has had a considerable influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, linguistics, artificial intelligence, cognitive science, computer science (see type theory and type system) and philosophy, especially the philosophy of language, epistemology and metaphysics. Russell was a prominent anti-war activist, championed anti-imperialism, and chaired the India League. External Website

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Biography of Care Experienced People Abraham Lincoln: A Life Michael Burlingame 2008 The first biography of Abraham Lincoln to be published in decades, Michael Burlingame explores Lincoln's early childhood in Part 1 and in Part 2, examines Lincoln's life during his presidency. External Website