Catherine lives and teaches English and Social Studies to middle school students in the heart of the Silicon Valley, Santa Clara. She tells her students daily that writing will make them immortal, pointing out that ancient civilizations that had a written language are still studied two thousand years later while cultures without a writing system disappeared with the wind.

American Family came to her with characters, Richard and Michael first and the plot followed. Around the same time, she joined the summer institute of the Writing Project at San Jose State University in 2006. In the afternoons, everyone was required to write; most wrote about education. Catherine wrote this novel.

It took ten years to write. She observed in Family Court, interviewed lawyers and a judge, and read the Supreme Court ruling on grandparents’ rights with a lawyer.

She is married and has three adult children, two grand dogs and one dachshund who has nothing wrong with his nose. She graduated from UC Berkeley with a bachelor’s degree in English in 1977, and a certificate in Creative Writing from UCLA. She was short listed for the James Kirkwood Award in 2012.