Author Kate Montgomery, Hilary Liftin

Hilary Liftin grew up in Washington, DC. In 1991 she graduated from Yale University, where she was the editor of the Yale Literary Magazine. She has worked in book publishing as an associate editor of nonfiction and literary fiction and as an editor/producer at several websites. She currently develops online products for Muze, a provider of digital information about music, videos and books, in New York City.

Kate Montgomery was raised in Wakefield, Rhode Island. She studied at Yale and Columbia Universiities, and has spent time teaching in both Czechoslovakia and Kenya. Kate has previously co-authored a non-fiction book A Teacher's Guide to Standardized Reading Tests. She is currently on leave from her job as a high school English teacher in Harlem to raise, with her husband David Hackenburg, their new son, Kobi.

Good To Know

In our interview, Liftin shared a few fun facts:

"I started keeping a journal in the third grade, writing doggerel. I always wrote in one of those clothbound books you get at bookstores, almost every day throughout high school and college. I credit journal keeping with my memory of my youth, which is very complete. Also, I think because the journals were private and never judged, I never have any kind of writer's block. I can always write something, even if it's terrible."

"My first job was working for the legendary publisher Sam Lawrence, who first published Richard Yates, Kurt Vonnegut, Jayne Anne Phillips, Tim O'Brien, Tillie Olsen, Susan Minot, and many other amazing writers. On my third day of work, Sam told me, ‘Publishing used to be fun, but you've ruined it for me.' "