Kate Carroll de Gutes lives a split life, dividing her time between a farmhouse built in 1893 in Iowa City (complete with a repaired limestone foundation) and a 3-story, modern townhouse in Portland, Oregon, with lots of light, wood floors, and a view of the best bridge in the city. Mornings find her either at a dining room table in Portland or on the screened porch in Iowa City, writing long-hand about gender, culture, and the surprises of living in a blue city in a red state where it's either snowing or a civil defense horn is announcing a tornado.
The Authenticity Experiment: Lessons From the Best & Worst Year of My Life, essays from Kate’s critically-acclaimed blog, has been called “a pilgrim’s map to those hidden spots where authentic experiences await anyone brave enough to look for them.” Winner of an Independent Publishing Award for LGBT Nonfiction, you can buy signed copies from Broadway Books.
“From its opening pages, the book grabs you by the collar and doesn’t let up with its magical combinations of story and language, wit and tenderness, truths personal and universal. This is masterful writing with sentences that linger on the mind for days after…”
— Domingo Martinez, creative nonfiction judge, 2016 Oregon Book Awards
Lives a split life, dividing her time between a farmhouse built in 1893 in Iowa City (complete with a repaired limestone foundation) and a 3-story, modern townhouse in Portland, Oregon, with lots of light, wood floors, and a view of the best bridge in the city. In the mornings, she either sits at someone’s dining room table in Portland, Oregon, or on the screened porch in Iowa City, and writes long-hand about gender, culture, and the surprises of living in a blue city in a red state where it snows and civil defense horns announce a tornado’s imminent arrival.
In October, 2020, during the early days of the pandemic, I moved halfway across the country to live in Iowa City. This had not been part of my ten-year plan. West : Midwest is an attempt to make sense of the Midwest, myself, my parents (who were raised in Wisconsin and Minnesota), and my sometimes incorrect belief that all things are better on the West Coast.
The Authenticity Experiment, the end of the world edition.When I was growing up, a young, sensitive, empathic Pisces, given to reacting to sudden changes of mood in the room, my mother would say to me, Oh, honey, it’s not the end of the world.
The Authenticity Experiment, the marmalade edition. My mother loved orange marmalade on buttered toast. She started eating it sometime in her thirties, I’m going to guess during her pregnancy of my youngest sister, Jule.
The Authenticity Experiment, the Julian of Norwich edition. For as long as I can remember, during difficult times, the Woman Who Gives Me Stories In Lieu of Advice has repeated to me, “All shall be all and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”
Copyright © 2022 Kate Carroll de Gutes. All Rights Reserved.