Katherine MacInnes (MSt Oxford University, MA Hons St Andrews) is a non-fiction author of two biographies, Snow Widows – Scott’s Fatal Antarctic Expedition Through the Eyes of the Women They Left Behind (Harper Collins 2022) and Woman with the Iceberg Eyes (History Press 2019). She is the fiction author of three stage plays and four children’s books. Writing as Kate Nicholson, Behind Everest: Ruth Mallory’s Story (Pen & Sword Books) is forthcoming in 2024.
She gives workshop tutorials in ‘reverse engineering’ narrative non-fiction and has interviewed other authors at literature events. She was shortlisted for the Biographer’s Prize.
Formerly an arts journalist and commissioning editor, Katherine has written features for The Lady, Country Life, The Times, Telegraph and in New Zealand, The Press. She has reviewed polar literature for the Times Literary Supplement and given talks on the invisible women behind the golden age of polar exploration at the Royal Geographic Society, at history and literary events and on BBC radio and pod casts. She is a member of the Society of Authors and the Biographer’s Club.
Katherine first started researching polar history when her husband climbed Everest in 2006 and her children were 10 months, 3 and 5. She looked to history and found inspiration from the invisible women – mothers, wives, widows – throughout exploration’s history.
Under the pen name Kate Nicolson, Behind Everest: Ruth Mallory’s Story was published by Pen & Sword Books in May 2024.
Praise for Snow Widows
“[MacInness] handles the whole thing with masterly skill…takes us to the heart of the hope, love, anguish and grief”
— The Times
“A truly gripping, original and refreshing angle on the history of polar exploration”
— The Bay Magazine
“I am reading it with fascination. It’s magnificent. [MacInnes has] an almost supernatural ability to conjure up the past.”
— Sue Limb, co-author of Captain Oates: Soldier and Explorer
