“With my friends in Brooklyn, many of them started out as artists. I saw many of these friends move into late middle age, still struggling without health insurance or a cushion. I saw people who had given up being artists. Being an artist necessitates a compromise or living on the edge.”

American novelist and memoirist

Kate Christensen is an American novelist and memoirist. She won the 2008 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction for her fourth novel, The Great Man, and is also known for her food-related memoirs. Her fiction includes The Great Man, a novel about a painter and the three women in his life. She has also written Blue Plate Special and How to Cook a Moose; the latter won the 2016 Maine Literary Award for memoir. Her eleventh novel, Good Company, is due from HarperCollins in June 2026.