An American with maternal Slavic ancestry, named by her mother in remembrance of Catherine the Great, Catherine Ivers Norton developed an early interest in St. Petersburg and the Russian people. A precocious child, she read every work by Russian writers at her local public library, including Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, while still in primary school. She spent her childhood writing short stories and composing poetry, planning to become a writer someday, with the dream of traveling to Russia close in her heart. Finding English studies painfully dull, however, she changed her academic course once in college.

The author earned a bachelor’s degree in Psychology with the highest honors from Alfred University in New York State. She went on to pursue a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at Syracuse University. The degree eluded her as she needed more practical work during a time of upheaval involving a difficult divorce. This story was born with urgency during that tumultuous period. Writing became a recreational outlet, an escape from emotionally intense work in the field of adolescent psychology.  

A woman of insatiable curiosity, Catherine lives in Ithaca, in the heart of New York State’s beautiful Finger Lakes region. She is looking forward to the moment she arrives in St. Petersburg, takes her first breath of Russian air, and wanders the city that has always felt like home in her heart.