Katherine Howe

Katherine Howe (born 1977) is an American novelist who lives in New England and New York City. She specializes in historical novels which she uses to query ideas about "the contingent nature of reality and belief." and A True Account. Her fiction has been translated into more than 20 languages.

Biography Howe was born and raised in Houston, Texas. Her mother is a longtime curator at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Howe graduated from the Kinkaid School and earned her undergraduate degree in art history and philosophy at Columbia University. She began writing fiction while doing graduate work; she earned an MA in American and New England Studies at Boston University. She teaches at Cornell University. The bestselling novelist Matthew Pearl, who also started writing fiction as a graduate student in English studies, is a core member of this group. He is sometimes credited with helping to launch Howe's literary career. Another of her relatives was Edward Howe, a ship captain, and his wife Hannah Masury, who took over his ship after his death on a Pacific excursion in the 19th century. Hannah Masury is the great-aunt of Katherine Howe, and her story became the inspiration for Howe's 2023 novel A True Account, which tells the story of a woman dressing up as a cabin boy on a pirate ship, which she eventually takes command of.