Monday, September 15, 2008

Author Biography of Kate Morgenroth


Kate Morgenroth, daughter of William Morgenroth and Elizabeth Hayes, was born January 17, 1972 in New York. She attended Princeton University in New Jersey, where she studied creative writing. After college, she spent an entire year in China where she taught English. Once she returned to New York, she was employed as a marketing assistant by Harper Collins publishing company in New York City. This was where her first book, Kill Me First, was published. Kill Me First turned out to be a huge success. A Publishers Weekly reviewer concluded that Kill Me First was "a clever and unusual thriller, unflinching in its violence, economic in its plotting, and unpredictable in its psychological developments." Library Journal reviewer, Rebecca Stankowski, called Kill Me First an "intelligent thriller" and a "refreshing first novel." Kate Morgenroth later wrote Saved, Jude, and Echo. All of these books are young adult level thrillers.

While her third book, Jude, received some mixed reviews, it received the Edgar Allan Poe Nomination from the Mystery Writers of America in young adult fiction category. Jude is a story about a teenager, Jude, who endures many trials in his life ranging from being kidnapped as an infant by his drug dealing father, being imprisoned for a crime he did not commit, and ultimately trying to reunite with his mother once released from prison.


Morgenroth described her motivation for writing this type of novel in an interview with US1 Newspaper in which she said, "I'm fascinated by the unpredictability of human beings. In a given situation, you never know how you're going to react. You'd like to think that you'd be the hero ... But I think the truth is that you never really know what's going to happen when your survival instincts kick in."

Works Cited

"Kate Morenroth." Contemporary Authors Online, Gale. 2008. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center, Gale. John Carroll. Sept 12, 2008. http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BioRC

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