Kath­leen Alcalá was born in Comp­ton, Cal­i­for­nia, to Mex­i­can par­ents, and grew up in San Bernardi­no. She has a BA in lin­guis­tics from Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty, an MA in Cre­ative Writ­ing from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton, and an MFA from the Uni­ver­si­ty of New Orleans. Both a grad­u­ate of and instruc­tor in the Clar­i­on West Sci­ence Fic­tion and Fan­ta­sy pro­gram, her work embraces both tra­di­tion­al and inno­v­a­tive sto­ry­telling tech­niques. She is the author of six award-win­ning books that include a col­lec­tion of sto­ries, three nov­els, a book of essays, and, most recent­ly, The Deep­est Roots: Find­ing Food and Com­mu­ni­ty on a Pacif­ic North­west Island, from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton Press.