Katherine Arden was born in 1987 in Austin, Texas. She
spent her junior year of high school in Rennes, France.
Following her acceptance to Middlebury College in Vermont,
she deferred enrolment for a year in order to live and study in Moscow.
At Middlebury, she specialized in French and Russian literature.
After receiving her BA, she moved to Maui, Hawaii, working
every kind of odd job imaginable, from grant writing and making
crêpes
to serving as a personal tour guide. After a year on the island, she
moved to Briançon, France, and spent nine months teaching. She then
returned to Maui, stayed for nearly a year, then left again to wander.
Currently she lives in Vermont, but really, you never know.
Her first novel
The Bear and the Nightingalewas published in
2017, followed by The Girl in the Tower in
2018 and The Winter of the Witch in 2019. She
has also written novels for children, such as Small Spaces and
Dead Voices. Her latest work is due to be released in 2021
titled Dark Waters.
Arden's writing is influenced
by J.R.R Tolkien, Mary Renault, Naomi Novik, Patrick O'Brien, Dorothy
Dunnett, Diana Gabaldon and Robin McKinley.
