Author, Teacher & Editor
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Kate Evans
writer, nomadic adventurer,
lover of life's great mysteries...
I love stories about women's journeys and transformations. I'm drawn to unconventional lives. And I'm fascinated by "love, sex, spirit & travel"--the subtitle of my first memoir, which won the Bisexual Book Award.
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My two memoirs (Call It Wonder & Wanderland) tell about how my husband and I left jobs and home to explore the world. We're nomads, housesitters, pet-carers, expats. We've also had to grapple with dramatic health crises and natural disasters that threatened to put an end to our wayfaring.
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My three novels feature women's life stories: For the May Queen (a young woman's first year in college), Complementary Colors (a woman in her thirties falls in love with another woman for the first time), and Revolutionary Kiss (a young woman's life during the French Revolution, which I co-wrote with Mary Janelle Melvin under the name Mary Kate Summers).
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I've also authored two collections of poems and a book about queer teachers. My essays, stories and poems have been widely published. I hold a PhD from the University of Washington and an MFA from San Jose State University.
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For many years, I taught university-level writing. Before that, I barely survived teaching in an American high school. I've taught internationally as well: at a language school in Japan and at a university in China. I led a writing retreat in Thailand and am developing one in Mexico.
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As a girl, I dreamed of becoming a traveling writer. Finally, that dream has come true. I'm grateful to be learning that, as Michel Foucault said, "we are freer than we think."
Half the year I live in Mexico. The other half I travel wherever the winds blow. I also work as a writing coach and book editor.
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A few of my pieces:
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"Tag Team Editors: How We Helped Each Other Write Our Books." WOW! Women on Writing.
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"After Undergoing Brain Surgery, I was Diagnosed with Cancer. Then I Got News I Never Expected." HuffPost Personals
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"From Baja to Lake Chapala: Magical Mexico." House Sit Magazine
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"After Being with a Woman for 15 Years, I Married a Man." Good Housekeeping and Woman's Day
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"The Healing Machine." Elephant Journal
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"8 Steps to a Dream Life of Travel." Elephant Journal
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"21 Things I'm Glad I Know." Elephant Journal
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"Write That Book: 7 Tips to Get it Done." Elephant Journal
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"How to Have a Crush on Your Husband." Elephant Journal
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"Pride: A Million Hands Holding Us." Elephant Journal
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Video Poem: "The Boy Who Gave Me Herpes." The Broken Spine
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Poem: "Elephant." Verse Daily
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Poem: "Above the Town." Poemeleon
My Favorite Books
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My Life in France, Julia Child
Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman
Harriet the Spy, Louise Fitzhugh
The Long Secret, Louise Fitzhugh
The Book of Salt, Monique Truong
Educated, Tara Westover
Good Cop, Bad Daughter, Karen Lynch
Vital Signs, Gregg Levoy
An Italian Affair, Laura Fraser
All Over the Map, Laura Fraser
The House by the Sea, May Sarton
Journal of a Solitude, May Sarton
Expecting Adam, Martha Beck
Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell
Ahab's Wife, Sena Jeter Naslund
The House of the Spirits, Isabel Allende
Daughter of Fortune, Isabel Allende
Pleasure Dome, Yusef Komunyakaa
Fear of Flying, Erica Jong
Housekeeping, Marilyn Robinson
Home, Marilyn Robinson
March, Geraldine Brooks
Wonder Boys, Michael Chabon
Infidel, Ayaan Hirsi Ali
When Things Fall Apart, Pema Chodron
Orlando, Virginia Woolf
To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf
The Illustrated Man, Ray Bradbury
The Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury
Beloved, Toni Morrison
We Learn Nothing, Tim Kreider
Egalia's Daughters, Gerd Brantenberg
Tipping the Velvet, Sarah Waters
Fingersmith, Sarah Waters
Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi (memoir in graphic novel form)
Love, Death, and the Changing of the Seasons, Marilyn Hacker
Birds of America, Lorrie Moore
The Book of Awakening, Mark Nepo
Seven Thousand Ways to Listen, Mark Nepo
Let's Take the Long Way Home, Gail Caldwell
The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan
Deep Creek, Pam Houston
The Invention of Wings, Sue Kidd Monk
The Happy Hollisters, Jerry West
Fun Home, Alison Bechdel (another graphic novel memoir)
Giovanni's Room, James Baldwin
The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin (kind of memoir/essays)
The Untethered Soul, Michael Singer
The Surrender Experiment, Michael Singer
This is the Story of a Happy Marriage, Ann Patchett
A Thousand Names for Joy, Byron Katie
The Geography of Bliss, Eric Weiner
Mind Over Medicine, Lissa Rankin
Willful Creatures, Aimee Bender
The Girl in the Flammable Skirt, Aimee Bender
The Talented Mr. Ripley, Patricia Highsmith
Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Anne of Green Gables, Lucy Maude Montgomery
Wesley the Owl, Stacey O'Brien
She's Not There, Jennifer Finney Boylan
Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?, Jeanette Winterson
Sexing the Cherry, Jeanette Winterson
Happy Yoga, Steve Ross
Writing the Natural Way, Gabriele Rico
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain
Dying to Be Me, Anita Moorjani
Champion of Choice, Cathleen Miller
Mules of Love, Ellen Bass
The Human Line, Ellen Bass
My Beloved World, Sonia Sotomayor
Tiny Beautiful Things, Cheryl Strayed
Wild, Cheryl Strayed
Cesar's Way, Cesar Millan
The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien
Half Broke Horses, Jeanette Walls
Bastard Out of Carolina, Dorothy Allison
Never Change, Elizabeth Berg
Pigs in Heaven, Barbara Kingsolver
The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
The French Lieutenant's Woman, John Fowles
Sailing Alone Around the Room, Billy Collins
The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz
The Hours, Michael Cunningham
Specimen Days, Michael Cunningham
Kiss of the Spider Woman, Manuel Puig
Me Talk Pretty One Day, David Sedaris
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Cactus Eaters, Dan White
The Dead and the Living, Sharon Olds
A Country Year, Sue Hubbell
Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides
Still Life with Oysters and Lemon, Mark Doty
Dog Years, Mark Doty
The Master, Colm Toibin
Just Kids, Patti Smith
Maus, Art Spiegelman (another graphic novel memoir)
Charlotte's Web, E.B. White
Hello Cruel World, Kate Borstein
From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basiel E. Frankweiler, E.L. Konigsburg
Little House in the Big Woods, Laura Ingalls Wilder
Understanding Comics, Scott McCloud
Born to Run, Christopher McDougall
Golden Days, Carolyn See
Making a Literary Life, Carolyn See
Ragtime, E.L. Doctorow
Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
The Art of Happiness, Dalai Lama
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Frank L. Baum
The Signature of All Things, Elizabeth Gilbert
My Heart is an Idiot, David Rothbart
Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China, Chang Jung
Maya Angelou's memoirs
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INTERVIEWS:
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Wanderland: Living the Traveling Life on BEHAS podcast
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Let's Talk Memoir podcast: Trusting Patterns Will Emerge
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Kate Evans on Bisexuality, Self-Love & Wanderlust
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Housesitting in Retirement: 9 Years of Freedom!
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Interview with Intrepid Travelers & House Sitters Kate & Dave
Truth Talk Radio with Deb Acker
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Interview with Author Kate Evans
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