Katy Butler

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

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

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
  • 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

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

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
  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.
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