Hey, friends! I’m Katie. I am an author, educator, and family historian, and a married mom of three awesome kids. We are a homeschooling family with lots of pets living in Indianapolis, Indiana. I’m a mountain-loving girl living in the heart of a midwestern city. I love to hike and I enjoy hiking nature preserves and parks in Indiana, but my favorite place to hike is anywhere on the Appalachian Trail.
I’ve been a writer since I was a little girl. I’ve written and self-published a number of books and am always working on more. My first two books were Going over Home and Going over Jordan, two young adult historical fiction novels, whose main characters are sisters. My third book was a children’s picture book based on the memoir of my great-great-great-grandmother, entitled When Mother Read Aloud: The Life Story of Almyra King Holsclaw. The title comes from the name of a poem her daughter wrote about her. Her memoir read like a children’s book, so I just had to make it into one. The book was illustrated by five local high school students. My fourth book is a novella called Shamrocks: A Memoir of Mothers and is based on my story as a mother and the stories of the women in my matrilineal line, tracing back to my fourth great-grandmother who came to America from Ireland.
Today I am writing more young adult fiction, including (working title) Angel Windows, The Grave on Tanager Drive, and one I affectionately call Maggie (for now).
My undergraduate degree is in Elementary Education and I have been an educator for years. For a long time I worked in Special Education, and for the past three years I worked from home as an online ESL teacher, teaching English to students in China. I have done graduate work in History and have studied Genealogy at the National Institute for Genealogical Studies.
Today I am a student at the Institute for Children’s Literature, working with a mentor who is a children’s book author. I am also a student at Vermont College of Fine Arts in the Writing for Children & Young Adults MFA program. I am working closely with my mentor at VCFA on Angel Windows, and short stories with my mentor at ICL.
I’m more than happy to hear from you! You can contact me here. And don’t forget to subscribe for news and freebies!