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 cats and dogs 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 two more young adult novels, The Grave on Tanager Drive and one affectionately called Maggie after the main character. I am also working on a series of novelettes called Hearth and Home, based on stories of our Indiana ancestors.
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 couple of years I have 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. I run a small shop called The Potter Family History Project where I share resources on history, genealogy, and writing.
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 a children’s and family yoga teacher-in-training, combining my practice with my love for nature and creativity and working to bring it to families everywhere online.
I’m more than happy to hear from you! You can contact me here. And don’t forget to subscribe for news and freebies!