Katherine Ayres

Katherine Ayres is an American author of children's literature, born in 1947 in Columbus, Ohio, and raised in Ohio, West Virginia, and New York. She has written numerous books including *Family Tree*, *North by Night*, and *Up, Down, and Around*, and teaches writing at Chatham University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where she resides. A former teacher and elementary school principal, she is a founding member of the Pittsburgh Public Theater's Playwrights’ Lab and has received honors such as Champion of Literacy.