Born in Aberdeen, Scotland, in 1960 she grew up in County Durham, graduated from Trinity Hall, Cambridge, with a first in History in 1982, and studied at Berkeley and Harvard Universities in the USA on a Harkness Fellowship.

She has lived on the Northumberland coast since 1987 and is best-known for her radio-poetry, which has been described by BBC Senior Producer Julian May as ‘extending the boundaries of the genre’. Her most recent publication, Two Countries, was shortlisted for the Portico Prize and described as ‘one of the most distinctive and important collections of the year’ by Morning Star.

Katrina is President of the Northumbrian Language Society and an ambassador for New Networks for Nature. She is a particularly strong performer of her own work, collaborating with both traditional and electronic musicians, including computer music pioneer Peter Zinovieff, leading Northumbrian piper Chris Ormston, and concertina virtuouso Alistair Anderson.