About Kate

Kate Brauning is the founder of Breakthrough Writers’ Boot Camp and has worked as talent manager at powerhouse book packager Working Partners, developmental editor at Dovetail Fiction, talent scout for Crazy Maple Studio, and acquiring editor for Entangled Publishing. She’s an author of young adult thrillers with a twist of the unusual, including How We Fall, The Ballad of Dinah Caldwell, and and the short story “Godzilla Girls.” As a child, she spent a lot of time in her local library, wandering the shelves and discovering all kinds of stories about all kinds of people. An incurable love for seeing real life through the pages of a book drew her to writing fiction, and at fifteen she decided she wanted someone to find her own books by searching through the shelves of a library. She's been writing ever since.

After teaching high school English for three years, she decided her life would be publishing all the way, and she started working as an intern for Carol Mann Literary Agency. Since then she has edited for publishing houses, bestselling self-publishing authors, and clients of literary agencies, including The Bent Agency, New Leaf Literary, and Dystel, Goderich & Bourret. She's worked as an acquiring editor at Entangled Publishing and as a copyeditor for Lerner Publishing Group, and she has been invited to present at SCBWI, the Romantic Times Convention, Pikes Peak Writers Conference, Idaho Writers Conference, RWA, Midwest Writers Workshop, Dordt University, Northwestern College, University of Nebraska Omaha, and others. Her novels have released to positive reviews from Kirkus, Booklist, VOYA, Horn Book Guide, and School Library Journal, and How We Fall was a Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Best YA Novel nominee.

 
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Books Kate has acquired and/or edited include:

  • Along Came Amor by Alexis Daria: USA Today bestseller, Publishers weekly starred review, a most-anticipated read by The New York Times, Oprah Daily, Today.com, Bookbub, & more.

  • The November Girl by Lydia Kang: Goodreads Best YA of the Month, Nebraska Book Award Winner, BookRiot Must-Read New Release, Locus Magazine Best Book of the Year

  • Toxic by Lydia Kang: RWA 2019 Athena Award winner

  • Sick Kids in Love by Hannah Moskowitz: Kirkus starred review recipient, Booklist starred review, Publishers’ Weekly starred review, 2020 Sydney Taylor Honor Book

  • Island of Exiles by Erica Cameron: Kirkus starred review, Junior Library Guild Selection, Kirkus indie book of the month

  • Sea of Strangers by Erica Cameron: Junior Library Guild Selection

  • No Kissing Allowed by Melissa West: USA Today bestseller

  • Knocked-Up Cinderella by Julie Hammerle: USA Today bestseller, RITA Contemporary Romance Mid-Length Nominee

  • The Devil’s Submission by Nicola Davidson: Smart Bitches Trashy Books A-Grade Recipient

Currently Kate lives in Iowa with her family and her Siberian husky, Willow. In her spare time, she travels, works on her baking skills, hunts down new music, and reads just about everything. Kate loves people, dark chocolate, snorkeling, feminism, everything about autumn, bright colors, grassroots social action, red maple trees, superstitions, advocating for human rights, ghost stories, night skies, equality, pie, and talking about books. She’s working hard on her next few novels, and if you see her, say hello, because she’d love to take you out for coffee and ask you what you’re reading.

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