Katy Butler
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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).
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
- Knocking on Heaven's Door: The Path to a Better Way of Death (2013) The New York Times called Knocking on Heaven's Door a "thoroughly researched and compelling mix of personal narrative and hard-nosed reporting"[10] and named it one of their 100 Notable Books of 2013.[11] The book also received a Books for a Better Life Award in 2014[12] and was a finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize.[13]
- The Art of Dying Well: A Practical Guide to a Good End of Life (2019) is a guide to reducing the risks of medical overtreatment and finding those helpful medical allies in the last third of life.[14]
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.
