“Reaching into the beating heart of a story . . . Kate, that’s your superpower.”
— Shobha Rao, award-winning author of Girls Burn Brighter and An Unrestored Woman
"I don’t trust people until I know what they love. If they cannot admit to what they love, or in fact love nothing, I cannot take even their smartest criticism seriously." – Stephen Dunn
For thirty-plus years Kate Moses has been passionate about guiding writers toward realizing the full potential of their literary projects. She has been an actively publishing writer of fiction, creative nonfiction, & literary criticism for just as long.
Her award-winning first novel, Wintering, has been published to international accolades in 16 languages. Cakewalk: A Memoir was chosen by NPR as one of its favorite memoirs of 2010. Kate is also the coeditor of two bestselling anthologies of essays on motherhood, Mothers Who Think and Because I Said So. Kate and her books have received numerous commendations including an American Book Award, the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize, a Prix des Lectrices de Elle, a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection, a Poets & Writers Debut Fiction selection, and a Lannan Literary Fellowship as well as fellowships from Djerassi Resident Artist Program, Hedgebrook, Karuna, The Lighthouse Works, and MacDowell Colony.
Kate’s high-level professional experience in the literary field includes being a founding senior editor and staff writer at Salon, senior acquisitions editor at North Point Press, a senior or managing editor at several monthly magazines, and the literary director of Intersection for the Arts in San Francisco. Books under Kate’s editorship have won the James Beard Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the PEN Faulkner Award. Among the writers Kate has worked with as an editor are Evan S. Connell, M. F. K. Fisher, Peter Matthiessen, Jayne Anne Phillips, James Salter, Ayelet Waldman, and many more. She has been on the creative writing faculties at San Francisco State, University of San Francisco, the State University of New York, the Gotham Writers Workshop, Key West Literary Seminar, and Hedgebrook, and has taught at twenty-plus colleges and universities in the U.S. and England. She is a member of the Association of Literary Scholars, Critics & Writers (ALSCW), Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP), The Authors Guild, the Editorial Freelancers Association, and PEN America and supports many literary organizations that in turn support writers. She serves on the Board of Directors for Craigardan arts residency center.
Kate holds an MFA in Fiction from San Francisco State University and a Doctor of Fine Arts, honoris causa, from the University of the Pacific. Recent clients of Birds & Muses include writers in fifteen states and nine countries beyond the U.S.
For press coverage about Kate and her books, please visit our Press Page. For additional information on Kate’s writing, please visit katemoses.com.