KATIE EDWARDS: Multitalented Multitasker

After her first few months in London as one of only a dozen students accepted each year in the Master’s program at the prestigious Courtauld Institute of Art (an independent college of The University of London), Katie Edwards remembers feeling as if she didn’t belong. “I suffered from imposter’s syndrome,” she says. “But when I told my professor how I was feeling, he reassured me that my classmates were feeling the same way, and explained that we had been selected precisely because we all brought something super different to the table and would learn more from each other than from our professors.” In 2019, she completed her Masters in Curating the Art Museum with flying colors.

Clearly, Katie was no impostor. When she arrived in London, she had already earned her undergraduate degree in Art History: Museums & Galleries Management at Salem College, where she was valedictorian and received both the Sophestia Award and the President’s Award for achieving the highest GPA over four years. Fortunately for Create Appalachia, Katie is also very community-minded and has chosen to put her considerable talent to the service of our organization as our Exhibit Committee Chair.

Katie is an illustrator/author for children’s books, most notably The Empower Empathy Early Series. She created the series with close friend and writer, Abigail Griebelbauer, and they publish through Passage Press, founded by the duo themselves. The first two books in the series, D is for Darcy Not Dyslexia and A is for Anthony Not ADHD, are available on Amazon. Katie and Abigail are currently finishing a new book, Winter Break at the Beach, scheduled for release later this year.

Katie, who spent her childhood in Kingsport, plans to remain in East Tennessee where she hopes to continue working as a full-time freelance illustrator for major publishers. When she’s not on the road, she works out of a second-floor office in Create Appalachia’s Kingsport Center for Art & Technology, alongside other creative entrepreneurs. “I’ve kept one foot in the art world via things like CA’s exhibit committee and managing a private collection,” she says. “I love living in a place where I can do a little of all of the things I love.”

Follow Katie Edwards on Instagram, @ceciliaedwards.art and @thepassagepress, and ThePassagePress.com.