Katherine Turner, Josha’s first author, is an award-winning author, blogger, and life-long reader and writer. She grew up in foster care from the age of eight and is passionate about improving the world through literature, empathy and understanding.
She strongly believes we can all benefit from deeper insight into and compassion for the long-term effects of trauma in the world around us. The issues and struggles are real for so many people, and she wishes, through her books and articles and by sharing the resources she’s found helpful along her own journey to heal from childhood trauma and abuse, to capture and shed light on this reality.
How did she get here?
Some of Katherine’s earliest memories involve having a book mere inches from her face as she hungrily devoured everything printed on its pages, her trusty dictionary within reach for any word she encountered for the first time. To her, there was nothing better—it was the ultimate life experience.
In fact, she loved reading to such an extent that as a pre-teen and early teenager, when other kids her age were getting in trouble for staying up to play video games or hang out in chat rooms, she was getting in trouble for reading into the wee hours of the morning.
But this was only one side of her love affair with words; when she wasn’t reading, she was writing. She wrote short stories, poetry, letters, journal entries, essays, and more. If it involved writing, she was doing it.
After graduating from high school, she followed a different path for her career until one day she decided to return to her first true love: writing. And that decision led to the crafting and subsequent publication of her novel, Finding Annie, which was a women’s fiction finalist in the 2020 Independent Author Network’s Book of the Year Awards as well as Josha’s first book.
Katherine’s Books
Katherine’s fiction revolves around the real-life struggles of the life-long impacts of physical and emotional abuse and sexual assault. Many of her characters battle anxiety and Complex PTSD resulting from childhood trauma, while others learn more about how to support those characters.
Instead of hiding those struggles, Katherine wants to expose those raw and gritty and sometimes infuriating imperfections because she believes they are also what make us all strong and beautiful.
In the realm of nonfiction, Katherine writes with a rare clarity and vulnerability about a past riddled with trauma and the ways in which that trauma has, and continues to, impact her life. She bares her most painful experiences in order to connect with others; to show survivors they aren’t alone and that there’s hope for a better future, and to expose what surviving is really like for those without first-hand knowledge.
Five Facts
- One of Katherine’s favorite pastimes is knitting! She learned to knit when she was 8, but didn’t knit with any regularity until her mid-twenties. Now she knits a little almost every day. You can check out her Instagram for pictures of some of her projects.
- Katherine swore for years that she would never mountain bike or rock climb, but after her husband persuaded her to give them a try, she fell in love with both activities and indulges in them as often as she can.
- When Katherine was 5 years old, she entered and won a writing contest at a local restaurant, winning a free Mother’s Day dinner and a small bouquet of roses for her mother.
- Katherine wrote her first long fiction—a novella—when she was 10 years old, about a girl who learned to set boundaries about her body after sexual abuse.
- Katherine’s first published book received an award! It was a Women’s Fiction Finalist in the 2020 IBPA Book of the Year Awards.
Josha Publishing, LLC is a woman-founded, woman-owned, and woman-run company that is passionate about books, stories, and the power of words to change lives. Learn more about us here and remember to sign up for our newsletter to find out about new content, new books, and submissions update.
Meet Josha author Katherine Turner!
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Writer. Survivor. Warrior.
Josha Publishing, LLC 