Nowlan grew up in the country town of Singleton, Australia, and after working briefly as a journalist began a career in film and television. She worked as a production assistant, researcher and writer for various independent production companies, including Kennedy Miller, as well as in commercial television.[4]
Nowlan's first film was a documentary entitled God's Girls (1991),[5][6][7] about the nuns who taught in her former high school. The film won the Best Documentary prize at the Australian Film Institute Awards.[2] The ABC/BBC co-production was described by The Guardian in the UK as 'much more gripping than the fictional Brides of Christ '. It was nominated for an Australian Film Institute Award and was a finalist in the Sydney Film Festival's Dendy Short Film Competition.[4]
In 1995, she wrote and directed the short film Lucinda 31, which was screened in film festivals in New York City and Brisbane, where it was voted Most Popular Film at the 1995 Brisbane Exposure Festival.[4] The script was an adaptation of a short story by Alexandra Long.[4]
