Katherine North grew up as a child of Christian missionaries in Japan. As she grew up, she had to break out of that mold and find her own way of connecting with the Divine. So how do we write and share our taboo topics? Find out as we talk about Holy Heathen: A Spiritual Memoir.
Katherine North is a writer and executive coach, helping high achieving, secretly sensitive women declare dominion over their demanding lives. She is the author of Holy Heathen: A Spiritual Memoir, a story of her metamorphosis from a scared missionary kid growing up in Japan to a thriving heathen mystic. She and her husband Nick North made an award-winning documentary, Just Another Beautiful Family, and recently appeared on Discovery Plus show Life Under Renovation. Their blended “rainbow” family of seven lives off the coast of Canada.
https://instagram.com/declaredominion
https://www.facebook.com/declaredominion
https://twitter.com/declaredominion
https://pinterest.com/declaredominion
https://www.linkedin.com/in/katherine-north-01955a12/
Amy Hallberg 0:00
So this is exciting. A friend of mine last year suggested that I take a look at Katherine North's Instagram feed, and maybe see if she wanted to come on my podcast. She had written a book called Holy Heathen. It's interesting because she's writing about taboo topics. I reached out. And Katherine responded and said, Yes, I would love to be on your podcast. So I read the book a little over a year ago, she and I recorded it. And then the timing just was never quite right to produce it. And I always planed to and I just didn't. It wasn't time yet. Well, now we're talking about a lot of taboo topics that have been silenced. And the time has come for us to talk about it. So here's my interview with Katherine North and I hope you'll enjoy it. You're listening to a whole new season of Courageous Wordsmith, Episode 63. This podcast presents conversation with and for real life creatives on how we find and keep walking our unique paths. I'm your host, Amy Hallberg, welcome to my world. Today, I'm talking with Katherine North, who is the author of Holy Heathen, a spiritual memoir. So, Katherine, what is it like to put those words that quote onto a page and publish it and let everybody read them?
Katherine North 1:33
It is a little bit like throwing up in your mouth. nauseating, a little bit terrifying. It was also incredibly liberating. It felt like freedom.
Amy Hallberg 1:52
So for the people who are listening to this book. So you just published this book in 2020. Right. Many things have happened in your life since then. I mean, like, if you look at the bio, it's clear that this, this drops you off before a lot of things have happened. So you're going back to a much earlier time in your life. And I think that memoir writers, I think we all have an origin story that we have to write before we can move past it. But this is not new content for you.
Katherine North 2:22
No, but I think you're absolutely right. I think that I had to write this book before anything else could come through. I sometimes say that I feel like I was like a woman who was like in labor with this book for years, and I was sort of waddling around, and nothing else could come through me until I gave birth to this book. But it was sort of funny, where this book ends. I am a happy solo mom living in Portland, single mom of one kid. And I am currently a married mother of seven. Right? Right. And I live on this island in this falling down house. And the book came out the same week that we closed on this house. So it has been a wild ride.
Amy Hallberg 3:09
It sounds like there's a second book that's just teeing itself up nicely after this one.
Katherine North 3:13
There is there is a second book. Yep. Yep. First, I'm actually working on a volume of poems at the moment, which was completely unforeseen. So once the poem book is is tied up, then yes, I am ready to write chapter two, which is about falling in love, when you don't even believe in love.
Amy Hallberg 3:30
Right? So let's talk about why you don't believe in love. Because the story is that your parents with all the love in their hearts decide that they're going to go to Japan as missionaries, to share the love of Jesus with all the world and bring you and your sibling. And I think like you had a third sibling who was born in Japan, if I'm remembering, right? So you talk about being a third culture kid. You talk about that fairly early on. You talk about actually, I'm going to read your quote, If you don't mind.
Katherine North 4:05
Sure.
Amy Hallberg 4:06
"My parents faithfully live out the best parts of that mission to shine a kindly light onto the lonely places of the world. Nevertheless, our first few years there we were all at sea. Our raft was leaking and the Shore was nowhere to be seen. Still, we kept praying, we kept going to church, we kept doing everything with a joyful heart, as unto the Lord God dammit." And I think you describe that as as what it's like to grow up as a third culture kid. So when you think of a third culture kid, what does that mean, in your experience?
Katherine North 4:44
Well, it's hard to separate out my own particular identification with that word. There is of course, a definition, but my personal experience of that word. I think I first heard that word when I was a teenager. And it was this new novel concept. And it was so funny because it was like everyone in our community kind of looked around at each other. And we were like, Oh my God, there's a word for us. And one of the interesting things about being a missionary kid is that this wasn't true for my parents, but many of my friends, my classmates, their parents had also been missionary kids. So there was like a generational thing that was happening. And so it was interesting to see these adults who had been missionary kids themselves had grown up and decided to themselves become missionaries. Not necessarily in the same country, but it was like all of these people looked around and sort of said to each other, oh, my gosh, there's a word for this. It's not just these weird feelings inside me that I don't have language for there's a term, I think that it was an immense relief to many of the people in my world.
Amy Hallberg 5:51
because your native language is English. But as I read this, you grew up fairly divorced from the American culture that that language came out of?
Katherine North 6:02
Yes, yes, I went to Japanese kindergarten, I began elementary in a Japanese school. But more importantly, you know, this was the early 80s. So there was no internet, you know, long distance phone calls to the US were a rarity. Our only contact with the states in terms of like pop culture was that people back in the US would record shows on VHS tapes, often including the commercials and mail them to us, usually sea mail, and we would pop them in our VCRs and watch them and they were these like, exotic, amazing, bizarre, rare, you know, like, what is a Cabbage Patch Doll? What is that? I don't know. But I want one, you know? Right? So yeah, we were completely disconnected. And yet, we were not Japanese either. And so we did kind of create this free floating world.
Amy Hallberg 6:59
There is something too, about being an American Overseas, that when you come across American things, it almost has this mystical quality to it. You know, like, I'm a stranger in a strange land. And that's, that's the country I am from, and it's happening over there. And I'm over here, things that happen in America, when I've been in Germany in my case, are much more large in my memory, do you have that experience as well?
Katherine North 7:22
you know, I was so young, when we left, I was five, I had just turned five when my family went to Japan. And then I think the first time we went back, I was seven and a half. So everything has that hazy sort of little kid quality. But I do remember returning to the states, and everyone would be like, welcome home. And it all felt new and unfamiliar. And so there was this strange sort of surreal quality to all of it. We say in our family, it's almost like the worlds are hermetically sealed. And I think this is less true now that we have internet and we all have smartphones, but especially back then it was like you were in one world completely. You were totally enveloped in it, you were saturated in it, it was the world. It was all there was. And then you would get on a plane. And you would like go through these series of you know, like port locks or portals. And then you would emerge and you would be in this utterly different world and the air felt different. And the smells were different. And the sounds were different. And all the announcements were in a different language. And suddenly, the food that you were craving was something that literally you hadn't even tasted or even thought about for six months or a year. And it was almost like there was no crossover between the two worlds.
Amy Hallberg 8:34
Wow. And yet there is a crossover, in the sense that if I'm reading your book correctly, the one commonality between these two worlds was your family's devotion to its Christianity to its Christian religion.
Katherine North 8:47
Yeah, we were this like pod. We were each other's squad, you know, and we, we were a Christian family. But we were also a family that was full of love and full of inside jokes and full of funny stories. And so we carry that with us. It was like, you know, we were crabs, and we carry that crab house of our family with us wherever we were
Amy Hallberg 9:11
interesting. So at what point I mean, I'm guessing that if that's your home like, right, your family, and the religion in which they're wrapped in, in that that laughter, in that culture and that God and all the stuff, right? That's your home? To know that it doesn't quite feel right. Must be really tricky, because what else do you have to turn to?
Katherine North 9:35
Yeah, yeah, it was because everything changed. We moved houses every few years. We went back and forth. We would be in Japan for a few years. And then we would go back to the States for a year and then we would come back and I think going into ninth grade was my ninth school and we lived in many, many different houses and so everything was fluid. The one thing that stayed the same was our family. And Yet, You're right. As much as I love to my family, I felt very other. I think every kid is sure at some point in their life, like I must be adopted. These cannot be My people. But it wasn't just like a one off flash of emotion for me, I love these people so much. And yet I could feel that I was not like them in some way that I deeply knew to be true and had absolutely no language.
Amy Hallberg 10:30
And how old were you when, when you became I know, I read about this in the book, but help me to place myself there. How old were you when you really were consciously aware of that difference, or that that unique quality in yourself?
Katherine North 10:45
I think the moment it broke through was when I tried to be, quote, unquote, become a Christian. I tried to get saved. And I knew the way you did this. I had heard it a million times in church. You set a specific series of words called the Jesus Prayer, and you had to say, like, Dear Jesus, I'm sorry for my sins, please come into my heart. And and that was it, you were saved. And so I was somewhere between around five or six. And I remember being like, Okay, this is it. I'm ready. I'm going to do it. And I got down on my knees, and I prayed the prayer. And I could feel it didn't take. And I was like, oh, no, I must have done it wrong. Okay, hold on. Let me try again. I try again. And I said it again. And and I was like, I didn't feel what I thought I was supposed to feel. And this was such a horrifying divide between me and everyone I knew and trusted, that I did not go to my parents crying and say, I tried to go to you to accept Jesus into my heart. And it didn't work. No, no, I swallowed it. And it was my my first real secret.
Amy Hallberg 11:52
You have a lot of secrets. I mean, it's interesting. They're not secrets that maybe would be scandalous, but secrets like the teacher who tells you that you write good essays and you're you're inside your mind, you're questioning whether he has any legitimacy, because he's actually telling you you're doing a good thing.
Katherine North 12:12
What was this strange, mysterious creature, a teacher who was kind? what, what is what is going what's going on? What's the game? what's the, what's the gig?
Amy Hallberg 12:21
Right? Because I mean, like, I'm reading some of these things. Okay. And as a former teacher, I mean, like, I know the educational system, it's hard to create a good educational system. But some of the things that happened in the various schools you went to they range from benign neglect to literal human rights abuses. Yes. And I mean, like, I won't spoil what happens, but there, but there's a range of various teachers. And so this one really stands out because it's so foreign to everything you've experienced up until that point, it seemed to me.
Katherine North 12:54
Yeah, absolutely. It was grade five. I had been to Japanese public school, I had been to public school in the United States, I had been to a series of small independently run schools ranging from like, a school that was sort of held in someone's home to a more established Christian school run by people who truly had no business doing anything with children. And then grade 5, I arrived, and my parents had helped to create this little sanctuary, and it was a one room schoolhouse. And it was in this giant building, which housed our mission headquarters. So there was kind of an air of like, lot of people running around and doing things. But there was this little classroom in the back, and it was surrounded by forest. And there were only I think, five or six kids. And we had this wonderful teacher. And it was so different than anything I'd ever experienced that it was like I didn't even know how to trust, I didn't know how to believe that I sort of kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. But eventually, eventually, it was like I could feel something in me relax
Amy Hallberg 14:00
This is an echoing theme. Because there's this teacher right? And there's a couple of mentors who show up where it's kind of like, on the one hand, you want to let yourself trust them. And you kind of let yourself trust them but you're always sort of wavering between these two polar spaces, it seems to me. I think of like there's a dance teacher that you meet tells you that you're promise and you want to believe her but you can't quite
Katherine North 14:28
Yeah, I couldn't quite and I didn't understand that promise has to be backed up with hours and hours of practice. And right, right, because I was so afraid and I was so deeply convinced of my own kind of wrongness. I drew my own conclusions, which were really stupid bad, like flawed, incorrect conclusions that like okay, I'm just not meant for this. And so I just took myself out of the running,
Amy Hallberg 14:57
But and yes, I'm like nodding my head over here. It's kind of like there's little, it's like gradations of opening up. You know, like there's this okay? No, I can't. Yes, I can. No, I can't. No, I can't. you get yourself to Bryn Mawr?
Katherine North 15:12
Yes.
Amy Hallberg 15:13
Which is a big departure.
Katherine North 15:16
It is unlikely.
Amy Hallberg 15:18
Right? It's such a big and you choose it because it feels like an act of delicious rebellion.
Katherine North 15:24
Yeah.
Amy Hallberg 15:25
as least as I read it. And I can tell there's a teacher there, that I just love, an English professor, where she's telling you to move beyond the formulaic, right, she's telling you to move beyond the expected. And yet she isn't able to move beyond the expected herself. And I find it I mean, it's this beautiful story where you see in her, it's almost like you're seeing in her something she doesn't see the same way. She's seeing a new, something you don't see this beautiful mirror. And to me that feels like a pivot point somehow, does it feel like that to you in the story?
Katherine North 16:06
That's so interesting. I never thought of it that way. But when you put it like that, yes. Yeah, yeah, I've had a series of interesting relationships with teachers throughout my life that actually continues. Even as I'm an adult, I'm hungry for knowledge. I want to learn everything. If I could just go to school forever. If I could get endless masters, I don't think I'd ever get bored. And yet, I also find myself deeply skeptical. And, you know, kind of, and probably a total pain in the ass to teach anything, because I'm always asking like, well, but why? And how do you know? And are you sure? And well, what about this? And but... Right.
Amy Hallberg 16:49
work of a memoir writer, don't you think? I mean, that is the work. You could put all this stuff on the page. I'm curious how long you said it took you a long time to write it?
Katherine North 16:57
Oh, mygosh, it took me 10 years. 10 years.
Amy Hallberg 17:02
Yeah, but it takes that long, because it requires that kind of reflection, right? You can't just say things in a book like this. I mean, I suppose you could but but you're digging into, you know, sacred tradition that, you know, you'd better really think it through. I'm wondering how much that weighed on you, as you were writing this book?
Katherine North 17:21
Well, the only way I was able to write the first draft at all was to tell myself that it was just for me, and no one was ever going to see it. And I was doing it purely as a, like a therapeutic act. I was doing it for my own healing, which was total bullshit. And I knew it. I also deeply wanted to share my story with the world because I've always wanted to be a writer, I've always wanted to write I think the words are this, like, oh my gosh, unbelievably potent form of magic. And they had the power to transform and heal and change the world. Anyway, I get excited. But I had to tell myself, I'm just gonna write it once for me. Because it was the only way that I could like, get out of my own way enough to let myself write it. And then I wrote it. And then I did, oh, my god, like 1000 drafts. And I went looking. So there's like the story of writing it. And then there was the story of publishing it, which was, in many ways, its own sort of hero's journey. And that's part of why it took so long to bring this book to the world. Because after I finished it, I sent it out to 80 million agents. And no one would take me on. And I thought, like, okay, well, I guess, I guess it was just for me, like, I guess that original impulse was correct. I'm not supposed to share it with the world. I'm, it's just for me, I had to just write it for me like, wow, that was, that was a lot of years of my life, I spent on something that was just for me, and I put it in a drawer. And the reason I put it in a drawer, even though everyone I knew was like you should publish it yourself. Self publishing: it's the wave of the future. And I was like, nope, nope, nope. This book, well written with as much love as I can muster. I know, it will hurt people I love it will hurt my parents, it will be probably hard on my siblings, it will probably strain or maybe even sever relationships with people who I adore, who are still in the church community. And so I was like, it's one thing if I'm like, "Guys, I can't help it. New York called, the literary community has given me their stamp of approval. And so I have to publish it." Right, right. I really wanted both that like permission slip and that stamp of approval, and that kind of almost like a helpless victim attitude, which it's just a weird thing to say. But that was how I approached my book deal was like I wanted, I didn't want to have to say to the world, I wanted to tell this story. I wanted to have this little bit of deniability, like well, it's not my fault. Right? Right. Somehow that made it noble it made it bigger than me. And so to self publish it myself where I was responsible for every aspect of it from choosing a cover, hiring an editor to you know, figuring out ISBNs felt gratuitous. I felt like I can't read. It was bad enough that I wrote this story, then I also am going to be the one who does the work to like, put it out into the world. Like, why don't I just spit in my beloved parents faces. And so I put it away. When I couldn't get an agent, I put it away. And it just sat in a drawer for a few years.
Amy Hallberg 20:23
Wow. Yeah. And what good, so clearly, it came out of the drawer. what happened.
Katherine North 20:30
I just grew up a little bit more, I just, I kept going around the spiral of my own growth. And I realized that writing it was good. But it was, I still had this like baby hanging out between my legs, I still couldn't move on. I couldn't, I couldn't really write anything else, I couldn't seem to get into creative flow, all of my ideas sort of shriveled. And I just sort of knew I was like, it's because I really want to put this book out into the world, not just that I want to I feel like this is my life's work, like and I actually still feel this way. I feel like if I never write another book, it's okay. Because I wrote the one that I had to write. I wrote the one that was eating me alive from the inside. And then I put it out into the world by myself under my own steam. But actually, I didn't do it alone in this, this piece is important. I asked my community for help. And they all knew, right, I have this incredible community of people who read my weekly missive and who have done my courses. And you know that some of them are private clients. And some of us we've just sort of been in this space together for a long time. And I finally said, Listen, you all know how long I've been working on this book. And I was just really honest. And I was like, I can't get an agent. No one will touch it. And I think I want to put it out into the world on my own. And will you help me and so I started a Patreon community. And wow, yeah. And they helped me like they helped me financially. Yes. But more importantly, they were like, with me, and I feel so emotional. Like I get really, like, I get all teary talking about them. Because I felt like I there was about 100 people in it, and I could like, feel them with me, I could feel their presence, I could feel them standing with me. And that gave me the courage to say like, Hey, family, who I adore, I wrote that book. I'm gonna publish it. Here it is, what do you think?
Amy Hallberg 22:29
You know, and I think that there's this idea that somehow writers are super courageous and do it all by themselves. And the truth of the matter is, nobody does it alone. At least not if you want it to be a good book. You need outside perspective, but you need people who are cheering you on who aren't disputing the facts of the matter. They're just there to help you to tell your most beautiful story.
Katherine North 22:55
And I did, I had someone who helped me with the crafting of the manuscript itself. This wonderful woman named Betsy Rapoport, she helped me craft the book. And then I had my incredible Patreon community who I call rich, juicy, stary, beauty, because that's what they are to me. They were like my emotional cohort. And then, yeah, I had a copy editor. And yeah, I had, I had much help.
Amy Hallberg 23:21
So let's talk about I've sort of been dancing around this, I guess we have been, but in this book, what I think is really, let's see, it's kind of damning, right? That your path out of this life into something that felt more authentic to you was, basically, you did all the things that a good Christian woman should never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever do. And you put it all on the page in glorious detail, and you're like, and I'm not apologizing for and so what was that? Like to put that on the page? And to? I mean, was that harder than any of the rest of it? Or was that just part of the whole deal?
Katherine North 24:08
You know, that part was not scary at all, compared to the first few steps I took away. So what I mean is, before I did all the bad things, you have to remember that first I did all of the right things. all of them. I did everything. I was so good. I was so fucking good. For so many years. I went to church, I prayed. I was a camp counselor. I led Bible studies. I was nice to small children. I was a virgin. I got married young, I was a virgin on my wedding night. We went to church as a couple like, we had church groups in our house, like I did everything. And I was so miserable. I was so sad. I was so depressed. I thought about dying. all the time, it was the only way out I could believe could be a possibility for me. So first I did all the right things, and I was just utterly miserable. And I think I actually had to go that far. I think I had to be so good and have it go so badly.
Katherine North 25:18
Right.
Katherine North 25:20
To believe that well, that didn't work. Like I did the hell out of it. I did. I did everything you know. And and here I am. I am like, I am crumpled on the proverbial memoirists bathroom floor. Sobbing, right, like trying to think of different ways I can end my own life. And I think it had to get that bad in order for me to think like, Well, I really, I really took that road as far as I could go. That didn't work. Okay, let me try a different road. And then I started
Amy Hallberg 25:51
Actually, I mean, if I, if I can just take us back a minute, you were on a path. I mean, Bryn Mawr, right. It's a women's college. It's very feminist, right? You had at your disposal, the possibility to just, you know, go off roading and just be like, Okay, bye, see you. And instead, it was like, you had to come back. You had to test out the proposition of a good Christian marriage. Yeah. Like you, you had to go that far as you say, because otherwise, maybe you might have been questioning and explaining those choices forever. Whereas there is no question like, when you read this book, it's like, no, there's no question. She, yeah, isn't coming back. She is burned every single day
Katherine North 26:35
Yeah, maybe I had to prove it to myself. Maybe I did. But I could not deny that like as I started to do bad things. So I had sex outside of my marriage, well I left my marriage, and I had this reckless, wonderful affair with someone who I wasn't married to, which was like, so bad in my world. And I drank alcohol, so much alcohol, and I smoked cigarettes. And I spent my money recklessly and I didn't get a real job. And then I became an actor. And I took like, sexy photos of myself, like I did all the wrong things culminating with having an abortion. That was sort of like the culminating experience. And it was the thing that cracked me open. It was like, as far as I could go away from that good Christian girl. And it was also the thing that brought me back to this deep heart, this deep, mystical, beautiful, loving presence that I still felt under everything. And it was like I had to go as far away as you could possibly go from evangelical Christianity. And and you know, if there's one issue that evangelicals are fanatic about it is abortion. And so there I was having an abortion finally feeling the love that I had been craving my whole goddamn life. So writing about it was nothing compared to living it.
Amy Hallberg 27:55
Interesting. I think, too, it's interesting that you, by the time you wrote this book, you had sat across the table with your mother, you describe how you're going to need 12 cigarettes to get through this thing, at least right? At least a dozen cigarettes, you know, so you're sitting at this table, and I just picture you and your mom's sitting at the table. And you know, clearly you are not in good shape. And clearly she's just, you know, like, so concerned about you. Right, and the forgiveness at that table, right, the absolute sin of the situation. And the absolute love and the absolute forgiveness that never came through before because you were always afraid of broaching any topics.
Katherine North 28:40
Yeah. There are so many conversations that never get had. And because we've never had them, we have no idea how that will turn out. Will they will they go wonderfully? Will they go terribly, we don't know. And then we are really brave. And we have some of them. And some of them do go terribly. But this one with my mother went incredibly, it was messy. You know, like on a score Munis level, it was like 1000. You know, it was offline some ways and yet it was also, like I say in the book, like it is the deep hinge that my whole relationship with my mother turns on.
Amy Hallberg 29:19
Right. Right. And I think that that's, you know, it's hard to get that I've had, I had a beautiful editor who went through my stuff and was like, Amy, that is emotional scorekeeping that is inelegant just call me out on the stuff where you know, like, it's so hard to know how far to go with that stuff. You know, you're trying to be honest, but at the same time, it can be really hard. And you do such a beautiful job of painting your mother with love, and somebody who's always doing her best. And I think that that's what, at least I really take away from this book is there's always a sense that you're trying to get back to love, you know, It's never about rebelling or trying to be bad. It's about where's the love in this situation? And how can I embody that more fully?
Katherine North 30:10
And you know, I'm really glad that actually I didn't write this book in my 20s. Because, for one thing, I hadn't, you know, I was perhaps ever so slightly less mature than your average bear. But also because I was not yet a mother. Right. And so having read, I would have only written it as a daughter. And now because of where I am in my life, I mean, I have five kids now. And so I can't help but also look through any story both as the daughter, but in terms of chronological time, I was the daughter living this story. But as I'm writing it, I am also a mother. And I'm thinking, Dear God, what will my children write about me?
Amy Hallberg 30:52
Right, don't ask my children that question, please. So, looking back, over this whole experience of writing this book, putting it out there, at this point, like I said, it's only been what less than a year, almost a year.
Katherine North 31:10
Exactly, actually.
Amy Hallberg 31:11
Yeah. Okay. So this experience of putting this book out, what do you know, now that you wish you could tell the you at the beginning of this journey.
Katherine North 31:22
ah, I wish I could go back and tell myself, you will not believe the freedom. On the other side of this. The reason that it feels like this book is trying to eat you live from inside is because it is actually trying to eat you alive from the inside, because you have to give birth to it, and it will torture you until you do. But once you do it, you will be like, more glad that you did that, than about anything in your life, except maybe the children you had and the love of your life that you married so now I've muddied the waters, but I just wish I could go back and tell myself like the reason this feels so intense to you, is because it is intense it is because your soul is longing to tell this story because it is a story of healing. And it is a story of wanting to be found. And instead being the one who does the finding. And then still being the one who was found. And some of that finding and being found happened in the writing. And it happened when I sent it out into the world. And so I just wish I could go back and be like, do it. Do it. Do it. Do it. Do it.
Amy Hallberg 32:44
I'm really glad that you did it.
Katherine North 32:45
Me too.
Amy Hallberg 32:46
It's a beautiful book.
Katherine North 32:47
If anyone else is out there wondering. I kept being like, well, then everybody wants to write a book. But guess what? It turns out most people don't even want to write a book. I don't want to really understand that as a concept, but they don't even want to. Oh my god do it. You will feel so good after you do.
Amy Hallberg 33:05
Absolutely. Thank you so much, Katherine.
Katherine North 33:08
You're so welcome. Thank you for having me. It's been a delight.
Amy Hallberg 33:15
Thanks for listening to Courageous Wordsmith. Today's episode featured Katherine North. You can read about her and check out her links in the show notes backstage at courageous wordsmith. My editor for this episode was the fabulous Maddy Kelley. If you enjoyed this podcast, you can help it thrive and grow organically. Please subscribe, right on this page, share it with your friends and sign up for True Lines my letter for real life creatives so that you can stay current with future episodes. And if you're feeling called to write maybe your taboo topics, and you wonder how I can help, please check out Amyhallberg.com and take a look at courageous wordsmith community it might be something for you to think about. I am Amy Hallberg and until we meet again, travel safely.