Katherine Billings Palmer is an author, poet, and essayist from Garden City, Michigan. She retired from her technical writing career in 2022 to pursue her writing career. In early 2024, she published My Story: A Memoir in Poetry and Prose, a compilation of more than 100 poems and essays about life, death, love, mistakes, and coming to terms with mortality. It’s available in ebook, paperback, and hardcover.
In 2017, Katherine’s husband, Rick, died of complications from small cell lung cancer. She wrote a series of poems and essays about her struggles to cope with her grief. I Wanted to Grow Old With You is a compilation of the poetry she wrote in the early stages of grief.
In January 2019, she published, A Widow’s Words: Grief, Reflection, Prose, and Poetry – The First Year. In September 2024, she published A Widow’s Words, Year Two: Grief, Reflection, Prose, Poetry… and Hope. The final book in the series, A Widow’s Words, The Later Years, was published in March 2025.
All books are available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
Katherine’s essay, “Garbage Day” was published in the 2021 Bear River Review. Her poems, “Friday Nights” and “Lost in Translation” were published in the 2024 Westland Writes.
Katherine is a guest blogger for the Hope for Widows Foundation and writes about her grief journey at www.TheWritingWidow.com.
Writing Awards: Katherine won several academic writing awards, including first place in the University of Michigan Critical Essay Contest for her work about poet John Donne: “‘
The Sun Rising’: A Lover’s Boast.” She was shortlisted for the Fish Publishing 2013 Short Memoir Prize for her essay, “My Father the Magician.”
Education and Achievements: Katherine was chosen as the University of Michigan Dearborn English Department’s Honor Scholar for 1995. That same year, she earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree With High Distinction. She was awarded the James B. Angell Scholar Undergraduate Excellence Award in 1995 and 1996.
Profession: Katherine retired from her career as a technical writer/editor in 2022. She wrote, proofread and edited technical engineering textbooks, workbooks, and eLearning courses for SAE International. Since 2002, she has owned and operated her own web and print design company.
