Intro: Kate Mead-Brewer

Hello! I can't tell you how excited I am to meet you all.

Do you have a nickname?
I answer to most things K-related: Kate, Katie, KC, etc. My mother lost the war with my father, and so I was born Katherine Campbell instead of Summer Bartholomew.

What do you like to read?
I'm both a picky reader and a Give Me Everything reader. There are some novels I would die for, but there are mountains of novels I've started yet never finished. Short stories are my true love. My dreamy heart-throbs: horror, fantasy, magical realism, & romance.

What kind of stories do you write?
I love writing horror/magical real stories. There's always an animal in there somewhere. Usually a ghost, too. Maybe a ghost-animal if all goes well. 

How would you describe your personality?
I'm shy but can fake extroversion pretty well. 

What would you do this summer if you hadn't been accepted to Clarion?
The same thing I do every summer, Pinky. Stay home and work.

Who will miss you most while you're in San Diego (cats, kids, partner, boss, coworkers)?
My husband, Evan, will miss me most. Peggy Sue, our puppy, will be confused and hurt by my absence, but she'll mourn me and move on. (Evan's her favorite, anyway.) Our guinea pig, The Cobra, won't miss me at all. Nothing fazes that creature.

Have you participated in an intensive writing workshop before?
I was lucky enough to participate in Tin House's Winter Workshop this past January, but it (sadly) only lasted about three days. I've participated in a couple different Master Classes through Hedgebrook and a non-workshop residency with the Vermont Studio Center.

What scares you most about Clarion?
Beyond the usual performance anxiety issues (which are real), I'm most nervous about the weather. I find sunny weather depressing; I need clouds and rain and action-oriented weather to feel truly energized. Clear blue skies are boring at best and oppressive at worst, like a giant hot hand pressing down and down and down.

What do you do to relax or for recreation?
Mostly, I read and hole up by myself. I'm essentially a mole-woman.

What 1-2 essential things will you bring to Clarion besides your laptop, watergun, and espresso maker?
My tarot deck & (travel) collection of bug marbles.

What is your ideal career?
If not writing, then serving as a Park Ranger.

What else do you want us to know about you?
Some random facts:

I'm from Nowhere U.S.A. My biological father was a Methodist minister, so we moved all over the rural Deep South when I was a kid, hopping from parish to parish as the diocese decreed. 

I'm incredibly interested in taxidermy as an art. I recently taxidermied my first rat, and there are few things I'm more proud of than how he turned out. Excellent head-shape.

I worship routine. It's incredibly comforting for me to fall into a rhythm of eating the same things at the same times of day, waking/sleeping at the same times, working at the same times and in the same places each day, etc. Maybe this is boring, but I'm okay with that.