Kathleen Schrenk grew up in New Orleans where, as a young child, she spent her summers catching toads, building subterranean clubhouses in vacant lots, and wading barefoot in streets flooded by afternoon thunderstorms. When she was twelve, she discovered greater adventures in the books of her neighborhood library. She practically camped out between the stacks to finish reading Kon-Tiki by Thor Heyerdahl and Nevil Shute’s post-apocalyptic On the Beach.
Photo: The author in Bayou Dupont, with the Louisiana Master Naturalists of Greater New Orleans. Photo credit: Dr. Robert Thomas.
A graduate of Louisiana State University, Kathleen worked as a speech and language therapist in the public schools and taught middle school science and language arts for twenty years. After leaving the classroom in 2001, Kathleen continued to work with children—as a volunteer tutor in Start the Adventure in Reading and as a docent for school groups in the New Orleans Botanical Garden in City Park. In 2005, following the devastation of her hometown from Hurricane Katrina and the floods that inundated the city, she focused her volunteer work on the recovery of New Orleans and on coastal restoration.
Kathleen is a member of the Louisiana/Mississippi Chapter of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. In 2021 she became certified and is a member of the Louisiana Master Naturalists of Greater New Orleans. She volunteers with the LMNGNO to bring the love of nature to school children. She is also a supporter of the Tennessee Williams Literary Festival and an affiliate of the Drawing Room Players of Le Petit Theatre du Vieux Carre.
Kathleen’s travel articles about European carnival celebrations have been published in Arthur Hardy’s Mardi Gras Guide. Her personal essay on Katrina recovery, Coming Home, appeared in Six Hens Magazine. A Dog Steals Home, her debut middle grade novel set in New Orleans, was released by Pelican Publishing Company in Spring, 2017. Her chapter book, The Case of the Left-hand Trombone (Pelican Publishing 2019), is a mystery set in New Orleans’ historic French Quarter.
Kathleen Schrenk 