Catherine Brooks grew up in rural Pennsylvania and was a farmer’s daughter. After completing her master’s degree at The Pennsylvania State University in 1992, she and her sled dog headed north to Alaska. Catherine worked various jobs in interior Alaska over the next three decades, including a youth development specialist, business owner, nonprofit director, tourism operator, office assistant and manager, lab technician, professor, and local government specialist. She especially loved her time teaching at the University of Alaska Fairbanks in the Department of Alaska Native Studies and Rural Development. Catherine swears she had the best students in the world in the program. She was honored with emeritus status in May 2024. Her husband has been beside her for the majority of the journey. They have been blessed with three wonderful children and three incredible grandchildren. They currently own Write22 together, where she loves to encourage, empower, and educate people. Her husband creates beautiful antler jewelry inspired by his Alaska Native heritage and growing up in a subsistence lifestyle. She and her family call Fairbanks, Alaska, home but spend most of the summer on the Yukon River at her husband’s family fish camp, where skills and traditions are shared with the next generation.