Catherine Fitzpatrick

Catherine Underhill Fitzpatrick grew up in suburban St. Louis, the second of six children who, like the heroine of Catherine’s new novel, Going on Nine, meandered through sultry summers unscheduled and unfettered. After graduating from the University Of Missouri School Of Journalism, she worked as a staff feature writer in Hannibal, St. Louis, and Milwaukee. In September of 2001, Catherine was in Manhattan to cover New York Fashion Week for Wisconsin’s largest newspaper. At first word of the terrorist attacks, she rushed to Ground Zero and filed award-winning eyewitness reports. A brief description of her reportage that day is included with accounts of other reporters and photographers in Running Toward Danger (2002, Rowman & Littlefield). A front page of the newspaper edition containing one of her 9/11 dispatches is among those memorialized in Washington D.C.’s Newseum. Her book-length account of her harrowing experience has been accessioned into the State History Society of Missouri archives. Her syndicated articles have been published in newspapers throughout the country. Her freelance stories and essays have appeared in St. Louisan (now St. Louis) Magazine, The Vocabula Review, Prick of the Spindle, Sew News, Fan Story, Yesterday’s Magazette, Reminisce Magazine, Ruminate quarterly, four Outrider Press anthologies, and in Lessons from my Parents (Familius, 2013). Going on Nine (Familius, 2014), a coming-of-age story set in 1956, is Catherine’s second novel set in St. Louis. A Matter of Happenstance (Plain View Press, 2010), her debut novel, is a four-generation family saga that explores the power of personal character over coincidence. Catherine is a member of the Chicago-area TallGrass Writers Guild. She and her husband, Dennis, live in Bonita Springs, FL.