| Katherine Ayres has been a lover of books since earliest childhood, when she began inventing stories before she could write them. Her childhood home state of Ohio is the setting for her first two novels, Family Tree and North by Night: A Story of the Underground Railroad.
Her present home, Pittsburgh, is the setting for her third novel, Voices at Whisper Bend. As part of her research for this book, which takes place during World War II, she spent a day on a tugboat on Pittsburgh’s Monongahela River. Her newest novel, Macaroni Boy, also takes place in Pittsburgh, featuring the Strip District during the Great Depression. Ayres traveled farther afield for her fourth and fifth books. Silver Dollar Girl begins in Pittsburgh, but quickly moves to the untamed terrain of the Colorado Rockies during the 1880s Silver Boom. Under Copp’s Hill visits turn-of-the-century Boston’s North End and explores mysteries that lurk in a settlement house and pottery. Stealing South returns to the 1850s in Ohio and Kentucky and is a companion book to North by Night. Whether writing about contemporary characters or historical ones, Ayres enjoys the opportunity to travel and study the real places she includes in her books.
Ayres enjoys writing for young people of all ages and has published three picture books for younger children. A Long Way began as a family travel story, but grew more fantastical in the skilled hands of artist Tricia Tusa. Matthew’s Truck is also a family story, which takes the listener on a fun ride via Hideko Takahashi’s vivid illustrations. Up, Down, and Around, illustrated by Nadine Bernard Westcott, is a celebration of vegetables and how they grow. This book was selected as The Pennsylvania OneBook (every young child) in 2008 and was featured on Oprah’s kids’ list. And in 2009, Ayres was chosen as the Outstanding Pennsylvania Author for children by the Pennsylvania School Library Association. Her novels have been nominated for several state readers’ choice awards and her work has been translated into Dutch, Italian, French and Japanese.
Cricket, Spider, Ladybug, and Pockets magazines are among the publishers of her short stories for children. She also writes plays for both children and adults, several of which have received professional readings.
Ayres’ love of literature was a theme during her first career as a teacher and elementary school principal, and she continues to enjoy working with children and teachers in the school setting. She teaches Writing at Chatham University, where she also coordinates the Masters of Arts in Children’s Writing. She has been a speaker at the California Reading Meeting (for teachers of reading), at Aspen Summer Words (a writers’ festival), at the National Council of Teachers of English, at the Ligonier Writers' Conference, at Fall Festival of Children's Books and at numerous schools as a visiting author and writer-in-residence.
When she is not writing, she skis, golfs, gardens, and quilts. She and her husband are parents to three adult children and grandparents to two girls and two boys.
 For more information, please visit Ayres’ website at http://personal.chatham.edu/faculty/kayres
For school events and author visits in Western Pennsylvania, please contact the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh and check out the outreach programs.
http://www.pittsburghkids.org
For school events and author visits in other regions, please contact the author, kayres@chatham.edu
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