About Katherine
My Career
After the publication of my first book, Seasonal Expectations, I had the good fortune to hear from M. F. K. Fisher, one of America’s most skilled essayist. I turned to her for advice when the San Francisco Chronicle asked me to be a columnist for them, writing about gardens. She told me she had learned to write from Katharine White, the wife of E. B. White, who had written a gardening column for the New Yorker magazine. That was enough to set me on a wonderful journey writing for more than a decade for the San Francisco Chronicle.
My Work
I wrote several hundred columns, articles, book reviews, and two books. Twice the columns won the highest award of the Garden Writers of America as the best garden writing in the States in any medium. The work involved some unexpected pleasures like a trip to glorious Dutch tulip fields and another trip to the lush gardens of New Zealand.
My Journey
The onward journey has taken me to Florida where the tropical plants are a whole new experience after years of writing about the Mediterranean plants that California shares with Australia, South Africa, and other similar climates.
The writing changed, too, and I’m now at work plotting suspense thrillers.