By the way:
My real name is Katina — you may see it on some of my older clips. When I was little, I was “Katie,” and now I go by Kate.
Some of my favorite words:
Crepuscular. Schadenfreude. Verisimilitude. Galactagogue. Ampersand. Anachronism. Persnickety. Flibbertigibbet. Gerund. Sanctimonious. Umbrellabird (along with other unusual bird names like Bananaquit and Ovenbird). Tacocat.
You’re likely to find me reading:
Long-form journalism at Longform.org. Books and articles about the human brain and the practice and history of medicine. The “Diagnosis” column in The New York Times Magazine. Children’s books with my son. New York magazine. The Washington Post. Novels and nonfiction for the neighborhood book club I started. Bitch Planet. Entertainment Weekly.
A few of my random projects:
- We Love Rochester invites people in my hometown to share what they like about living here, and I add my own photos to complement the contributors’ words.
- Movie posters + cats + puns = these.
- Art + cats = this.
My 15 minutes (or rather, few minutes) of fame:
- My tweeted contribution to #RuinARealityShow in June 2014 (part of Hashtag Wars on Comedy Central’s @Midnight) was deemed “one of the funniest” by StyleCaster.
- A Change.org petition I created in 2015 asked Apple to remove racist ringtones from the iTunes Store and garnered about 2,300 signatures. The San Francisco Chronicle interviewed me for a story — and Apple removed the ringtones soon after. (I even got mocked on San Diego talk radio. Now, how many of you can say that?)
- The abovementioned We Love Rochester blog has been getting some press mentions, and in 2016 it gave me the chance to talk about Rochester on local TV.
- My name appears in a 2009 amicus brief filed for a Supreme Court case. (The brief was filed by the Humane Society of the United States, where I once worked, and referred to an article I wrote in 2006.)
