Katy Butler

Last updated

Katy Butler (born 1949) is an American journalist, essayist and author of Knocking on Heaven's Door, the Path to a Better Way of Death, (Scribner, 2013) and The Art of Dying Well: A Practical Guide to a Good End of Life (Simon & Schuster, 2019).

Contents

Career

Attended Sarah Lawrence College and earned a BA from Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut.

Teaches writing at the Esalen Institute [1] and was a speaker at The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard's 2008 and 2009 conferences on Narrative Nonfiction. Awarded writing residencies at Mesa Refuge, Hedgebrook, and Blue Mountain Center. [2]

In the 1980s she exposed abuses of sexuality and power by leaders of American Buddhist communities. [3]

She speaks at hospitals, [4] medical schools [5] and other locations about improving end-of-life medicine and the doctor-patient relationship. [6]

Publications

Butler's essays and articles have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, [7] The Wall Street Journal, Mother Jones, the Los Angeles Times Sunday Magazine, New West Magazine, Vogue, The Village Voice , Tricycle (The Buddhist Quarterly), More magazine, Psychotherapy Networker magazine, [8] among others. [9] Her writing career began with an internship at the San Francisco Bay Guardian , followed by a stint as a staff reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle that lasted for 12 years.

Books

Awards and honors

In 2010, the Nieman Foundation named "What Broke My Father's Heart," an essay about how a pacemaker forced her "father's heart to outlive his brain" a "notable narrative." [15] The essay, first published in the New York Times Magazine, [16] also won awards for national journalism from the National Association of Science Writers [17] and the Association of Health Care Journalists. [18] Butler's essays have appeared in Best American Essays, Best American Science Writing and Best Buddhist Writing. In 2004, she was a finalist for a National Magazine Award for an essay about applying traditional religious practices to the chaos of modern life.

Personal life

Married to Brian Donohue and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. Born in South Africa in 1949. Grew up in England and the Boston area. A Buddhist since 1977, Butler was lay ordained by the Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh [19] and has co-led small meditation groups.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roger Angell</span> American writer (1920–2022)

Roger Angell was an American essayist known for his writing on sports, especially baseball. The only writer ever elected into both the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Baseball Writers' Association of America, he was a regular contributor to The New Yorker and was its chief fiction editor for many years. He wrote numerous works of fiction, non-fiction, and criticism, and for many years wrote an annual Christmas poem for The New Yorker.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adam Hochschild</span> American author, journalist, and lecturer

Adam Hochschild is an American author, journalist, historian and lecturer. His best-known works include King Leopold's Ghost (1998), To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914–1918 (2011), Bury the Chains (2005), The Mirror at Midnight (1990), The Unquiet Ghost (1994), and Spain in Our Hearts (2016).

Jay Anthony Lukas was an American journalist and author, probably best known for his 1985 book Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families. Common Ground is a classic study of race relations, class conflict, and school busing in Boston, Massachusetts, as seen through the eyes of three families: one upper-middle-class white, one working-class white, and one working-class African-American.

<i>Tricycle: The Buddhist Review</i> American Buddhist quarterly magazine

Tricycle: The Buddhist Review is an independent, nonsectarian Buddhist quarterly that publishes Buddhist teachings, practices, and critique. Based in New York City, the magazine has been recognized for its willingness to challenge established ideas within Buddhist communities and beyond.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barbara Kingsolver</span> American author, poet and essayist (born 1955)

Barbara Kingsolver is an American novelist, essayist and poet. She was raised in rural Kentucky and lived briefly in the Congo in her early childhood. Kingsolver earned degrees in biology at DePauw University and the University of Arizona and worked as a freelance writer before she began writing novels. Her widely known works include The Poisonwood Bible, the tale of a missionary family in the Congo, and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, a non-fiction account of her family's attempts to eat locally.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marilynne Robinson</span> American novelist and essayist

Marilynne Summers Robinson is an American novelist and essayist. Across her writing career, Robinson has received numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2005, National Humanities Medal in 2012, and the 2016 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction. In 2016, Robinson was named in Time magazine's list of 100 most influential people. Robinson began teaching at the Iowa Writers' Workshop in 1991 and retired in the spring of 2016.

Lauren Kessler is an American author, and immersion journalist who specializes in narrative nonfiction. She teaches storytelling for social change at the University of Washington and for the Forum of Journalism and Media in Vienna.

<i>Lions Roar</i> (magazine)

Lion's Roar is an independent, bimonthly magazine that offers a nonsectarian view of "Buddhism, Culture, Meditation, and Life". Presented are teachings from the Buddhist and other contemplative traditions, with an emphasis on applying the principles of mindfulness and awareness practices to everyday life.

John Joseph Moehringer, known by his pen name J. R. Moehringer, is an American novelist, journalist, and ghostwriter. In 2000, he won the Pulitzer Prize for newspaper feature writing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Isabel Wilkerson</span> American journalist

Isabel Wilkerson is an American journalist and the author of The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration (2010) and Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents (2020). She is the first woman of African-American heritage to win the Pulitzer Prize in journalism.

Evan Alan Wright is an American writer, known for his extensive reporting on subcultures for Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair. He is best known for his book on the Iraq War, Generation Kill (2004). He also wrote an exposé about a top CIA officer who allegedly worked as a Mafia hitman, How to Get Away With Murder in America (2012).

Peter Trachtenberg is an American writer of fiction, nonfiction, and memoir.

<i>The Devil and Sherlock Holmes</i> 2010 book by David Grann

The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession (2010) is a collection of 12 essays by American journalist David Grann.

Gabriel Mac is an American author and journalist. From 2007 to 2012, he was a staff reporter at Mother Jones, eventually in the position of human rights reporter. He has also written for The New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, and other publications.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Laura Jane Fraser</span> American journalist, essayist, memoirist and travel writer

Laura Fraser is an American journalist, essayist, memoirist and travel writer. Her most recent book is The Risotto Guru, published by Shebooks in 2013. All Over the Map, published by Harmony in June 2010 is described as a "coming–of-middle-age" story about her adventures exploring the globe. It is a sequel to her first memoir, the New York Times-bestselling An Italian Affair. All Over the Map was included in Oprah's Top Ten to Read Now for Summer, ranked #2 Bestseller in Denver, and awarded Traveler Book of the Month by National Geographic magazine. Fraser is co-founder and Editorial Director of Shebooks.net, an ebook publishing platform for women. She is based in San Francisco.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eli Saslow</span> American journalist (born 1982)

Eli Eric Saslow is an American journalist who writes for The Washington Post and ESPN The Magazine. He is a 2014 winner of the Pulitzer Prize, a recipient of the George Polk award and other honors. He was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in feature writing in 2013, 2016 and 2017.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nicholas Vreeland</span> Swiss photographer

Nicholas Vreeland, also known as Rato Khen Rinpoche, Geshe Thupten Lhundup, is a fully ordained Tibetan Buddhist monk who is the abbot of Rato Dratsang Monastery, a 10th-century Tibetan Buddhist monastery reestablished in India. Vreeland is also a photographer. He is the son of Ambassador Frederick Vreeland and grandson of Diana Vreeland, the fashion editor.

Pamela Colloff is an American journalist. She has contributed to The New Yorker, but a majority of her work has been featured in Texas Monthly, where she was an executive editor. As of 2017, Colloff is a senior reporter at ProPublica and a writer-at-large at The New York Times Magazine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paige Williams (author)</span> American journalist and author

Paige Williams is an American journalist and author. She is a staff writer at The New Yorker. Williams held a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard, and her work has won a National Magazine Award for feature writing. She has served as editor of Nieman Storyboard and has taught classes in narrative writing for the Nieman Foundation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Beth Macy</span> American journalist and writer

Beth Macy is an American journalist and non-fiction writer. She is the author of four published books, including national bestsellers Factory Man (2014) and Dope Sick (2018).

References

  1. ↑ "What Broke My Father's Heart". New York Times Magazine, accessed May 1, 2012.
  2. ↑ "2008-1998 Residents" Archived 2010-06-15 at the Wayback Machine , Mesa Refuge, accessed June 28, 2010; Danticat, Edwidge and Atwan, Robert. "The Best American Essays 2011", Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 2011, p. 227; "Resident Alumni Updates" Archived 2012-03-08 at the Wayback Machine , Blue Mountain Center. Retrieved June 18, 2010.
  3. ↑ "Sex Scandal Has U.S. Buddhists Looking Within". The New York Times, accessed April 29, 2012.
  4. ↑ "Southern California Healthcare Providers Call for More Compassionate End-of-Life Care". Cedars-Sinai. Retrieved 26 June 2015.
  5. ↑ "The Douglas West Endowed Memorial Visiting Lecture" (PDF). Mount Sinai Hospital. Retrieved 26 June 2015.
  6. ↑ "Award-Winning Author Katy Butler Coming to Chicago". Life Matters Media. 12 June 2014. Retrieved 26 June 2015.
  7. ↑ McLeod, Melvin (ed.). The Best Buddhist Writing 2006. Shambhala Publications, 2006, p. 64ff. The essay first appeared in Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, Summer 2005.
  8. ↑ American Society of Magazine Editors, National Magazine Award Archived 2011-05-26 at the Wayback Machine , accessed June 18, 2010. For the story, see "Living on Purpose, The Seeker, the Tennis Coach and the Next Wave of Therapeutic Practice" Psychotherapy Networker, September/October 2003.
  9. ↑ "Katy Butler shows the bitter side of medical intervention". Nieman Storyboard, accessed April 29, 2012.
  10. ↑ Verghese, Abraham (6 September 2013). "Letting Go: "Knocking on Heaven's Door," by Katy Butler". The New York Times. Retrieved 26 June 2015.
  11. ↑ "100 Notable Books of 2013". The New York Times. 27 November 2013. Retrieved 26 June 2015.
  12. ↑ "Books for a Better Life Awards Winners Announced at Ceremony Hosted by Meredith Vieira". National Multiple Sclerosis Society. Retrieved 26 June 2015.
  13. ↑ "2014 Dayton Literary Peace Prize Finalists". Dayton Literary Peace Prize. Retrieved 26 June 2015.
  14. ↑ Butler, Katy (19 February 2019). The Art of Dying Well. ISBN   9781501135316.
  15. ↑ "Katy Butler shows the bitter side of medical intervention". Nieman Storyboard, accessed April 29, 2012.
  16. ↑ "What Broke My Father's Heart". New York Times Magazine, accessed May 1, 2012.
  17. ↑ "2011 Science in Society Awards". National Association of Science Writers, accessed April 29, 2012.
  18. ↑ "2010 winners named in premier health journalism awards". Association of Health Care Journalists, accessed May 1, 2012.
  19. ↑ "An Interview with Katy Butler". Tricycle Magazine, accessed May 1, 2012.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.