Draft:Katherine May
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Comment: See WP:BLP. Statements need to be sourced or removed. For example, the early life section is entirely unsourced. Greenman (talk) 20:51, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
- Comment: Likely notable, but more independant sources would really help in proving so. -- NotCharizard 🗨 07:19, 18 November 2024 (UTC)
Katherine May is a British author and podcaster. She has written three memoirs: The Electricity of Every Living Thing: A Woman's Walk in the Wild to Find Her Way Home,[1] and Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times[2] and Enchantment: Reawakening Wonder in an Exhausted Age.[3] Both Wintering[4] and Enchantment[5] were The New York Times and The Sunday Times bestsellers. Wintering was a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week.[6]
Early life and education
[edit]Katherine May (née Gagie) was born in Gravesend, Kent in 1977. She spent her childhood in the villages of Chalk and Higham, on the outskirts of Gravesend. She studied Social and Political Sciences at Downing College, The University of Cambridge, from 1996-1999 then trained as a teacher on the Graduate Teaching Programme.
She lives in Whitstable, Kent, with her husband and son.
Career
[edit]After graduating, Katherine worked for arts organisations including Tate Britain and Creative Partnerships. She later worked as a literary scout for Lucy Abrahams Literary Scouting, and for Faber Academy as a manuscript assessor. Katherine was the Programme Director for the Creative Writing BA and MA at Canterbury Christ Church University from 2013 until 2018. She became a full-time writer in 2021 and that year launched a podcast series called The Wintering Sessions, followed by a podcast series called How We Live Now. She has written essays and journalism for publications including The New York Times[7], The i paper, The Guardian[8] and Aeon.
Works of non-fiction
[edit]- The Electricity of Every Living Thing: A Woman's Walk in the Wild to Find Her Way Home (2018)
- Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times (2020)
- Enchantment: Reawakening Wonder in an Exhausted Age (2023)
- Writing as Betty Herbert: The 52 Seductions Paperback (2012)
Works as an editor/contributor
[edit]- The Best, Most Awful Job: Twenty Writers Talk Honestly About Motherhood (2021)
Works of fiction
[edit]- Ghosts & Their Uses (short stories) (2006)
- Burning Out (2009)
Writing as Katie May:
- The Whitstable High Tide Swimming Club (2017)
Awards and achievements
[edit]The Electricity of Every Living Thing was adapted as an audio drama by Julie Parsons and Caitriona Shoobridge for Audible. It won a silver[9] at the British Podcast Awards in 2023.
Wintering won the Porchlight Business Book Awards personal development and human behaviour category 2020.[10]
Neurodivergence
[edit]Katherine has written about being neurodivergent in her books as well as in essays and journalism. She wrote an account of having face blindness for The Guardian newspaper. "I didn't always know I was face-blind. I grew up thinking that I just didn't remember people."[11]
Her book The Electricity of Every Living Thing described her realisation that she is autistic, and the process of being diagnosed. "People like me can live entire lives wondering why everything is so hard for us. Doctors, teachers and mental health professionals are still routinely unable to spot our autism, and their knowledge is often agonisingly out of date. The invisibility endures." She wrote about her experience of realising she was autistic as an adult in the i paper. "This new self-knowledge is complex and imprecise. It can be hard to unpick a lifetime of concealing your autism."[12]
Articles of note
[edit]Autism on the Inside[13] (2018) published in Aeon.
References
[edit]- ^ THE ELECTRICITY OF EVERY LIVING THING | Kirkus Reviews.
- ^ Kellaway, Kate (2020-02-04). "Wintering review – learning to love the cold". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2024-11-17.
- ^ "Enchantment: Reawakening Wonder in an Exhausted Age by Katherine May". Faber. Retrieved 2024-11-17.
- ^ "Hardcover Nonfiction Books - Best Sellers - Books - March 19, 2023 - The New York Times". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2024-11-17.
- ^ "Hardcover Nonfiction Books - Best Sellers - Books - March 19, 2023 - The New York Times". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2024-11-17.
- ^ "Wintering". www.bbc.com. Retrieved 2024-11-17.
- ^ May, Katherine (27 February 2023). "How To Feel Alive Again". The New York Times.
- ^ May, Katherine (2023-03-29). "'There I was, a tiny speck in a vast universe' ... How awe made my life worth living again". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2024-11-17.
- ^ "Results 2023". British Podcast Awards. Retrieved 2024-11-17.
- ^ "Porchlight Books 2020 Business Book Awards". 17 November 2024.
- ^ May, Katherine (2020-08-30). "My face blindness is embarrassing – but it tells me a lot about other people". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2024-11-17.
- ^ May, Katherine (2021-11-18). "Like Sykes and McGuinness, I was diagnosed with autism as an adult. I'm now so much happier". inews.co.uk. Retrieved 2024-11-17.
- ^ "The autistic view of the world is not the neurotypical cliché | Aeon Essays". Aeon. Retrieved 2024-11-17.