Katherine (Squidge) didn’t always want to be an author, even though she loved writing stories as a child.
Her dream job (aged 7) was A Dress Designer, but after working a Saturday job on a deli counter weighing out meat and cheese, a year weighing out pic’n’mix sweets in Woolworths, and after a very short stint of two weeks as an egg pickler, she took the serious option and studied to be a Pharmaceutical Microbiologist, keeping creative ‘stuff’ for hobbies.
When she started a family with Mr Squidge (there are two Squidgelings), Katherine became a stay-at-home mum, and started to make up silly stories and poems to tell the Squidgelings. Those stories grew in length, until they were long enough to be written down and ultimately published.
With several children’s fantasy novels and many short stories for both children and adults published, Katherine enjoys enthusing young folk about reading and writing, and has given many workshops and author talks to a wide range of audiences.
Fun facts
Katherine is only four feet, eleven and a half inches tall.
She loves rainbows – proper ones, with the true colours in the right order (though she’s happy to lump indigo and violet into purple) – because she loves colour, and rainbows are also a sign of God’s promise.
Photo credit: Tom Hetzel
She often writes in her garden room at the bottom of her garden, watching the birds on the feeders when she’s working out plot points.
Photo credit: Tom Hetzel
She only wears hand-knitted socks, which she knits herself.
Her favourite foods are salted crisps, cold chicken, and liquorice – but not all at the same time.
She’s always been a bookworm, which is why Father Christmas always used to hide any book-shaped presents at the bottom of the present pile; once a book got opened, everything else was on hold…
Photo credit: Tom Hetzel
