Meet Katie, Operations Assistant

My name is Katie, and I started working at Brazos June 2018. My obsession with books started very early. Teachers would run out of books for me to read, and at home I read constantly. One of my favorites, The Ghost's Dinner by Jaques Duquennoy, influenced not only my artwork as an adult but the books I would gravitate towards. In my teens I fell off of reading because of the typical high school distractions…you know, Orchestra and Latin Club! But the required reading of 1984 reignited my love of being immersed in another world. Sometime in high school I stumbled upon Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves and my eyes were opened to the infinite worlds waiting to be explored. I would say that this is the book that has influenced and stuck with me the most.

Now I enjoy sitting with my puppy Hero, a cup of coffee, and a bouquet of sunflowers while reading speculative fiction (Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel and Strange Heart Beating by Eli Goldstone), houses with many rooms or anything larger on the inside (The Grip of It by Jac Jemc and You Should Have Left by Daniel Kehlmann), books in translation (Things We Lost in the Fire by Mariana Enriquez and Fever Dream by Samantha Schweblin), Latin/Mexican authors (Everyone Knows You Go Home by Natalia Sylvester and The House of Broken Angels by Luis Alberto Urrea), Japanese authors (After Dark by Haruki Murakami and Record of A Night Too Brief by Hiromi Kawakami), short stories (Difficult Women by Roxane Gay and Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado), and graphic novels (A City Inside by Tillie Walden and Frida. Operretta Amorale A Fumetti by Vanna Vinci).

I have a BFA in Fine Arts with a concentration in Painting from Baylor University and an MFA in Painting from Houston Baptist University. Art and reading have always worked together in my life, and I could not have one without the other to be happy.

I wake up thinking about books and go to work everyday excited to be surrounded by so many incredible undiscovered stories.

Katie's book recommendations
Katie's Kids Book recommendations