Katherine Howe is completing a PhD in American and New England
Studies, and is a descendant of Elizabeth Proctor, who survived the
Salem witch trials, and Elizabeth Howe, who did not. The idea for The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane developed while Howe was studying for her doctoral qualifying
exams and walking her dog through the woods between Marblehead and
Salem. She lives in Massachusetts, with her husband.