FIVE THINGS YOU DON’T KNOW ABOUT ME

If you read my novel based on true events, THE FAR END OF HAPPY, or if you saw my funny dance video on Bloom, you may think you know me—but there’s oh-so-much more to Kathryn Craft!

1. I once shook hands with the most successful athlete at the 1968 Winter Olympics: Jean-Claude Killy of France, who won gold in downhill, slalom, and giant slalom. He was at my house! My parents offered to entertain him because the wife of the top advertising exec at Head Ski, who lived in our neighborhood, was due to give birth any day. My sisters and brother and I, skiers all, were lined up in front of the couch according to age (I was second), wearing our Sunday best, just for the honor of a handshake before getting kicked upstairs. As he took my hand, Jean-Claude (because surely by this point we were on a first-name basis, no?) said my name “Kah-tr-REEN” with little roll to the “r”—and my 13-year-old self just about fainted dead away.

2. When I was 19, I had a summer job as a nurse’s aid at a nursing home. You didn’t need certification back then but they did give me a trial by fire: the first day they had me give a sponge bath to a man dying of bone cancer who had horrid bed sores and who vomited throughout. Each day thereafter, I was afraid to go back, but I did, and my three months there made an indelible impression on me. There were 15 individuals on each of the three floors and now, forty years later, I could still tell you something about each one of them.

3. I have amassed collections in my life that were precious to me but in the end were absolutely worthless. Among them: seashells, postcards, butterflies, “tiny things,” 45s, Playbills, carved birds, and silver baby spoons. I’m not a hoarder—I parted with them all but the spoons and some of the birds, eventually—but I feel it’s important to surround yourself with things that fascinate you. Now my favorite collection is my books!

4. I had 5 different college majors—medical technology, Russian, zoology, pre-med, biology education—before getting a masters in health and physical education with a dance concentration. I did not want to be pigeon-holed. I wanted to learn all the things.

5. I started to write fiction after my husband died and I could no longer afford to keep horses. I had started taking dressage lessons after dancing became too painful due to a lower back injury. I started dance because I couldn’t sing like Barbra Streisand. So if people don’t like my writing, they can blame my intractable vocal cords.

Kathryn

More about Kathryn one her bio page.

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