Author Bio
• Birth—June 5, 1962
• Where—Washington, D.C.
• Education—Parsons School of Design, New School for Social
Research; Georgetown University; Bangor Theological
• Currently—Lincolnville, Maine, USA
Kate Braestrup was raised in Washington, D.C., and met her husband-to-be, James Andrew ("Drew") Griffith, when they both were students. They married in 1985 and moved to Maine when Drew was hired as a state trooper. While raising a family, Braestrup found time to do some writing, and in 1990 she published Onion, a first novel whose title derives from a nickname for their son Owen. Drew was planning to retire from police work and begin training for the Unitarian ministry when tragedy struck. En route to work one morning in 1996, he died in a car accident, leaving Braestrup a widow and single mother of four.
It was in the course of working through her grief that Braestrup found her true calling. Inspired by Drew's dream of becoming a Unitarian minister, she enrolled in Bangor Theological Seminary, was ordained in 2004, and joined the Maine Game Warden Service as a law enforcement chaplain. In this capacity, she responds to dozens of wilderness emergencies, from lost hikers and accident victims to suicides and the occasional murder, offering comfort and counsel to people in need. She recounted her remarkable odyssey in Here if You Need Me, a memoir filled with insightful observations on grief and loss, life and death, God and nature. Published in 2007, the book was a National Book Award finalist and received the Barnes & Noble Discover Award for Nonfiction.
Braestrup has since happily remarried and now lives in Maine with her blended family. In between her ministerial duties, she contributes freelance articles to various publications.
Extras
From a 2008 Barnes & Noble interview:
• Braestrup comes by her writing ability honestly. Her father, Peter Braestrup, was a noted war correspondent, writer, and journalist; founded The Wilson Quarterly; and served as Senior Editor and Director of Communications for the Library of Congress.
• Braestrup's grandfather, Carl Bjorn Braestrup, worked on the Manhattan Project and co-invented a cobalt-therapy machine used for cancer treatment.
• Braestrup confesses: "I knit too much. I knit my Christmas presents, I knit leg warmers for all the children in my daughter's graduating class; I knit hats for all the editorial staff at Little Brown, I knit all the insulation in my house and am thinking of knitting a cozy for the car. My children are convinced that, if the house caught fire, I would save my knitting basket before I'd save them. (Does my knitting basket have its own perfectly good legs? I ask them.)
• When asked what book most influenced her life or career as a writer, here's what she said—
When I was about seven, my mother handed me the book she had just finished reading. "I think you'll like this," she said. "Even though it is a grownups' book." It was Gerald Durrell's My Family and Other Animals. It was a memoir of a childhood spent on the Greek island of Corfu. Durrell, the younger brother of novelist Lawrence Durrell, was a naturalist, zookeeper, and early advocate of conservation, and he wrote about the animals he encountered and the family and friends of his childhood with equal affection, humor and enthusiasm. My friend Natasha and I went on to read all of Durrell's books. Quite recently, I wrote to Durrell to tell him that Natasha and I each considered him an inspiration for our subsequent careers, mine as a writer and hers as a wildlife biologist. Unfortunately, by the time I sent the letter, Gerald Durrell was dead. (Author bio and interview from Barnes & Noble.)