Katy Butler

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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).

Career[edit]

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[edit]

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[edit]

  • 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[edit]

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.

Personal life[edit]

Married to Brian Donohue and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. Born in South Africa in 1949. Grew up in England and the Boston area. A Buddhist since 1977, Butler was lay ordained by the Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh[19] and has co-led small meditation groups.

References[edit]

  1. ^ "What Broke My Father's Heart". New York Times Magazine, accessed May 1, 2012.
  2. ^ "2008-1998 Residents" Archived 2010-06-15 at the Wayback Machine, Mesa Refuge, accessed June 28, 2010; Danticat, Edwidge and Atwan, Robert. "The Best American Essays 2011", Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 2011, p. 227; "Resident Alumni Updates" Archived 2012-03-08 at the Wayback Machine, Blue Mountain Center. Retrieved June 18, 2010.
  3. ^ "Sex Scandal Has U.S. Buddhists Looking Within". The New York Times, accessed April 29, 2012.
  4. ^ "Southern California Healthcare Providers Call for More Compassionate End-of-Life Care". Cedars-Sinai. Retrieved 26 June 2015.
  5. ^ "The Douglas West Endowed Memorial Visiting Lecture" (PDF). Mount Sinai Hospital. Retrieved 26 June 2015.
  6. ^ "Award-Winning Author Katy Butler Coming to Chicago". Life Matters Media. 12 June 2014. Retrieved 26 June 2015.
  7. ^ McLeod, Melvin (ed.). The Best Buddhist Writing 2006. Shambhala Publications, 2006, p. 64ff. The essay first appeared in Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, Summer 2005.
  8. ^ American Society of Magazine Editors, National Magazine Award Archived 2011-05-26 at the Wayback Machine, accessed June 18, 2010. For the story, see "Living on Purpose, The Seeker, the Tennis Coach and the Next Wave of Therapeutic Practice" Psychotherapy Networker, September/October 2003.
  9. ^ "Katy Butler shows the bitter side of medical intervention". Nieman Storyboard, accessed April 29, 2012.
  10. ^ Verghese, Abraham (6 September 2013). "Letting Go: "Knocking on Heaven's Door," by Katy Butler". The New York Times. Retrieved 26 June 2015.
  11. ^ "100 Notable Books of 2013". The New York Times. 27 November 2013. Retrieved 26 June 2015.
  12. ^ "Books for a Better Life Awards Winners Announced at Ceremony Hosted by Meredith Vieira". National Multiple Sclerosis Society. Retrieved 26 June 2015.
  13. ^ "2014 Dayton Literary Peace Prize Finalists". Dayton Literary Peace Prize. Retrieved 26 June 2015.
  14. ^ Butler, Katy (19 February 2019). The Art of Dying Well. ISBN 9781501135316.
  15. ^ "Katy Butler shows the bitter side of medical intervention". Nieman Storyboard, accessed April 29, 2012.
  16. ^ "What Broke My Father's Heart". New York Times Magazine, accessed May 1, 2012.
  17. ^ "2011 Science in Society Awards". National Association of Science Writers, accessed April 29, 2012.
  18. ^ "2010 winners named in premier health journalism awards". Association of Health Care Journalists, accessed May 1, 2012.
  19. ^ "An Interview with Katy Butler". Tricycle Magazine, accessed May 1, 2012.

External links[edit]

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