Kate’s first book, Objects In Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear, won the 2016 Oregon Book Award for Creative Nonfiction and a 2016 Lambda Literary Award in Memoir. A wry observer and writer who started her career as a journalist, Kate is a stickler for the serial comma, and also believes that there should always be two spaces between a period and the beginning of the next sentence.

Her second book, The Authenticity Experiment: Lessons From the Best & Worst Year of My Life, based on her critically acclaimed blog, was released in September, 2017 and won an Independent Publishing Award medal in LGBTQ Nonfiction.

Kate was recently recognized by the Tanne Foundation for outstanding artistic achievement with an unrestricted financial award.  Kate has received fellowships from the Jack Straw Foundation, the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, the Anderson Center, Artsmith, and Centrum. An authentic and humorous teacher, Kate has taught at Pacific Lutheran University, University of Idaho, University of Puget Sound, and Willamette University, as well as at the Kachemak Bay Writers Conference, Chuckanut Writers Conference, and the Willamette Writers Conference.

She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Professional Writing from the University of Puget Sound and a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University.

That sounds really fancy and impressive, doesn’t it?  Really it means Kate will have student loans until she is 72 years old and that all her liberal arts education makes her fascinating at dinner parties.  You should invite her and see for yourself. Kate will be charming and will show up in a lovely patterned bow tie that she ties herself.