Bio

Kathleen Kaska, writer of fiction, nonfiction, travel articles, and stage plays, has just completed her most challenging endeavor. The Man Who Saved the Whooping Crane, a true story set in the 1940s and 50s, is about Audubon ornithologist Robert Porter Allen whose mission was to journey into the Canadian wilderness to save the last flock of whooping cranes before encroaching development wiped out their nesting site, sending them into extinction. Published by University Press of Florida, the book is scheduled for release in 2012. 

Kathleen also writes the award-winning Sydney Lockhart mystery series set in the 1950s when women were caught between the dichotomy of career and marriage; when fashion exploded with a never-before-seen flair; and movies and music had the country dancing with gusto. Her first mystery, Murder at the Arlington, won the 2008 Salvo Press Manuscript Contest. This book, along with her second mystery, Murder at the Luther, were selected as bonus-books for the Pulpwood Queen Book Group, the largest book group in the country. Before bringing Sydney into the world of murder and mayhem, Kaska published three mystery-trivia books, (What’s Your Agatha Christie I.Q.?, The Alfred Hitchcock Triviography and Quiz Book, and The Sherlock Holmes Triviography and Quiz Book. 

When she is not writing, Kathleen spends much of her time traveling the backroads and byways around the country, looking for new venues for her mysteries and bird watching along the Texas coast and beyond. It was her passion for birds led to the publication The Man Who Saved the Whooping Crane.

After graduating from University of Texas at Austin with a degree in physical anthropology, Kathleen taught middle-school science for 25 years. She was a staff writer for AustinFitmagazine from 1997-2002. Her articles have appeared in Cape Cod Life, Marco Polo, Agatha Christie Chronicle, and Home Cooking Magazine. She is a frequent contributor to Texas Highways magazine.

When too road weary, she splits time between her two favorite places, the Pacific Northwest and the Texas Coast. It’s tough though, having been born with the original sin of wanderlust. Nonetheless, her laptop is nicely stowed in her bag and a bird-reference book and binoculars are always on the front seat.