About Kate
The short story: I am a freelance journalist, writer, essayist and children’s book author. I have been a correspondent for Outside magazine for many years, and I live in Durango, Colorado with my husband and one large, mischievous cat.
A longer story: I never felt truly like myself until I moved out West and started to spend a lot of time with my feet on dirt. I believe in the power of nature and the outdoors to transform us. Much of my early work focused on how to get outside. I wrote gear reviews for Outside magazine, where I interned and worked as an associate editor for a couple of years. I hauled many dozens of backpacks up mountains and slept in sub-zero temperatures in piles of sleeping bags, among many other assignments.
After going full-time as a freelance writer at 24, I wrote travel features that were largely guided by a search for awe and adventure. I dove with 9-foot bull sharks in Fiji that changed my fear of predators with their primordial grace. I trekked in Bhutan and woke up one morning to snow leopard tracks circling my tent. I waded among curious penguins in some of the biggest colonies on Earth in remote Antarctic waters. Through the privilege of these assignments, a thread of wonder naturally began to weave through my life and my work.
I channeled that sense of joy into two children’s books, the bestselling National Parks of the U.S.A. and 50 Adventures in the 50 States as well as a coffee-table book, 100 Hikes of a Lifetime, for National Geographic.
I also increasingly covered the innumerable and unignorable ways in which this Earth and its denizens, including us, are ailing. Much of my magazine work in the last 10 years has addressed environmental issues and crises in mental health, from cyberbullying in outdoor communities and suicide clusters in mountain towns to the ways in which climate change is threatening Mesa Verde’s flora and ancestral dwellings. I have written about conditions like atypical anorexia and the effort to achieve parity in health care among different body sizes and what it takes to go through breast cancer as a young career mother.
I continue to be curious about how we can live in the world in a way that allows for the wellbeing of ourselves, others and the land. I am currently working on a children’s book, The Hidden Wisdom of Animals, that is intended to have layers of meaning for kids and adults and invite deeper relatedness with nature. Through science, story, and cultural lore, the book is exploring what we can learn from the wildlife in our backyards and across the world, inspiring us to live better lives with more wellbeing, ease and connection. It will be released by Quarto/Wide Eyed Editions in the fall of 2025.
In 2022, after three years of training, I was ordained as a dharma leader in the Western Theravada Buddhist lineage and now serve the Durango Dharma Center through dharma talks, meditation classes, short retreats, and pastoral care. I also co-steward the spiritual programming for the community. While the content of my writing work is very different from my dharma service and I keep them separate, I aspire for the universal themes of clarity and compassion to weave throughout all of my work and time. Thanks for visiting this website and do reach out if you’d like to start a conversation.
P.S. My last name is pronounced like seabird but without the d.