Kathryn grew up in Greenbelt, Maryland and is a mystery writer, screenwriter, playwright, and professor. She is the co-writer/producer of the feature crime drama, A Savage Nature, to be released and distributed by Gravitas Ventures August 3, 2021. The film won Best Feature Drama – French Independent Film Festival, Best Thriller – Washington Film Festival, Best Feature Film – New Cinema-Lisbon Monthly Film Festival, Grand Prize Thriller Award – Hollywood Screenplay Contest, and Best Actress (Joanna Whicker) – Los Angeles Crime and Horror Film Festival and screened at numerous festivals in 2020-2021. For more information about the film, visit http://savagenaturemovie.com/

Her debut novel, Foal Play, won the Malice Domestic Best First Traditional Mystery Novel competition. Murder on the Hoof and Neighing with Fire (Pacific Book Awards Finalist in Suspense, Library of Virginia Literary Award Nominee) are the second and third books in the Colleen McCabe series (St. Martin’s Press/Minotaur) set on North Carolina’s Outer Banks.

Her short story, Big Yellow Taxi, is published in the 2021 Anthony Award Best Anthology Nominee The Beat of Black Wings: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Joni Mitchell (Untreed Reads). Her short story, He Done Her Wrong, featuring silver screen icon Mae West as an amateur slueth, is published in Charlaine Harris Presents Malice Domestic 12: Mystery Most Historical (Wildside Press).  Her plays are published in The Best Ten-Minute Plays of 2014 (Smith & Kraus, Inc.), The Best Ten-Minute Plays of 2011 (Smith & Kraus, Inc.) and Plays of the Dramathon (The Theatre Lab).

She is the creator/writer/producer of the multi-award winning and internationally viewed Western series, Thurston, and recipient of the Mary Marlin Fisher Playwriting Award, an American Association of University Women Educational Foundation playwriting grant, a Shubert Fellowship, and a Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award in Playwriting. She was twice named Faculty of the Year at Northern Virginia Community College.

She has earned degrees in psychology from Boston College, Loyola University Maryland, and Hofstra University and an MFA from Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Drama. She is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, The Dramatists Guild, and other professional writing organizations. Kathryn lives in Virginia with her husband and frequent collaborator, filmmaker Paul Awad, and their tabby rescue cat.