KatieBio
Katie's Bio.

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Saturday, May 07, 2005


katekgarten
Originally uploaded by kgranju.
The Life and Times of Catherine Brittain Allison Granju




My name is Katie Allison Granju and I am a writer/editor/TV producer/mama living in East Tennessee. I have three children, Henry, Jane and Elliot. My husband JON and I are expecting a baby girl in late summer '07.

Most of my growing up years were spent in Bell Buckle, TN after my parents decided that 1.) raising their kids in in Los Angeles didn't suit them and subsequently, 2.) living as organic farming hippie-writers in early 1970s Washington State wasn't for them either. So we settled in Bell Buckle, where I had an idyllic childhood on a rundown old farm, surrounded by cousins and grandparents and my parents' odd assortment of interesting and eccentric friends and neighbors.

Over the years, many members of my family have migrated to Bell Buckle from all over the country, so now it's like Allison/Anderson central. My children love Bell Buckle as much as I did as a child and there is nothing they would rather do than spend a few days there, playing with their friends and cousins and being petted by grandparents and great-grandparents.

My education includes grades 7-12 at the fondly-recalled Webb School in Bell Buckle, 6 years of flaky college work (should have taken 4) at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, and a fellowship at the University of London, interning with a Member of the British Parliament.

My mother, father, uncle, and grandmother are all writers and each of them has made their living freelancing at various times. My grandmother, Nancy Anderson, was an editor with Photoplay magazine in the 60s and early 70s, and was an entertaiment columnist for Copley News Service for many years after that. My Uncle John's writerly claim to fame is having penned the cover story for the lowest selling issue of Rolling Stone...ever.

Everyone in my family told me I should do something - anything - other than become a writer.

So I tried. I really did. I worked in group homes for kids in foster care, waited tables, dropped in and out of law school ...but basically it came down to the fact that writing is the only thing I know how to do. So I have now been writing/editing for a living since 1995 and my articles and essays have appeared in a variety of online and print publications, including the New York Times, the Chicago Sun, The Chicago Tribune, Salon.com, Cooking Light, Hip Mama, Pregnancy magazine, AustinMama.com, the Knoxville News Sentinel, Breastfeeding.com, MSN's women's channel,Brain,Child,PARENTING, Cooking Light,PhillyMama.com, etc, etc.

Until recently, I wrote regularly for the alternative weekly, Metro Pulse, and I also do some consulting on web content and online community issues for large commercial and non-profit sites.

Between 1999-2001 I was an online producer with converged TV/Web network, Oxygen Media. I sometimes teach freelance writing via the University of TN's Dept. of Continuing Education and I am a full-time TV news producer with an NBC affiliate.

I was accepted to the Bread Loaf Writer's Conference in non-fiction last year, but alas, logistics prevented me from going. Maybe next year...

I've been involved in politics for many years and first interned with a Tennessee congressman in Washington D.C. for several months when I was fifteen (I have no idea what my parents were thinking). I spent two college summers in D.C. working on the Hill, and I also served as national treasurer of College Democrats of America during that period. These days, I have a strong interest in a number of issues specific to my adopted hometown. I have been involved in many Democratic campaigns over the years and I intend to eventually run for office myself.

I wrote the book Attachment Parenting: Instinctive Care for Your Baby and Young Child, and I've been published in several anthologies. I have an essay in Andrea Buchanan's new book, out from Seal Press in October '05. I will have a piece in the anthology of New York Times "Modern Love" essays, that will be published by Riverhead Press in 2006. And my new book "Let Them Run With Scissors: How Over-Parenting Hurts Children, Parents and Society" will be published by Soft Skull Press next year.

Aside from my work, I stay pretty busy with mothering. My daughter and I both ride hunter-jumper horses and we spend a lot of weekends at horse shows. In fact, I would spend all my time at horse shows and at the barn if I could.

Other interests of mine include feminism, social justice issues, buddhism, good books, long walks, knitting, music, my animals (two dogs, one horse, two cats), architecture (20th century kit houses, bungalows, new urbanism, not-so-big-house movement, etc), and hanging out with friends and family.

You can reach me at kagranju@gmail.com

posted by Julie | Saturday, May 07, 2005
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