Katherine Paterson celebrates her birthday on October 31st. She was born in Quing Jiang, China to missionary parents. She moved eighteen times before she turned eighteen, perhaps a reason why Paterson's work is so particularly successful in portraying strong characters who are often set apart or cast out from society, sometimes physically apart. Paterson's characters are strong in spite of or because of their alienation and are often on a quest to discovering their own identities. Katherine doesn't remember wanting to be a writer when she was small. In fact, by the age of ten, she remembers wanting to be a movie star or a missionary. Patterson received a degree in English from King College in Bristol, Tennessee and taught in Japan for four years. Her life as a writer began in 1964, but she wasn't getting her work published until a friend took her to an adult education course in creative writing one night a week. Eventually, the novel she started in that class was published. Her Bridge to Terabithia and Jacob, Have I Loved have won Newbery Awards. The Master Puppeteer was a National Book Award winner. She has received numerous awards and honors, including the Regina Medal, the Hans Christian Anderson Medal for Writing, and the Kerlan Award in 1983 for her body of work.
