Catherine "Cat" Bauer is the award-winning author of contemporary novels featuring the young protagonist, Harley Columba, and is known for her unique and honest voice. Publishers Weekly said, "Bauer creates a witty and resilient narrator in...Harley Columba... Readers will be rooting for this sympathetic heroine." In the Thomson Gale biography, the authors noted that: "Readers and reviewers often found the strength of Bauer's novel in the authentic voice of its heroine, Harley. Patricia Morrow, for example, in Voice of Youth Advocates, remarked that 'Harley's voice is true to the experience of many young people,' and that 'Although the outcomes are not unexpected, they do not follow any formulas.'" Ms. Bauer is the oldest of five children. She was born on an Air Force Base where her father was stationed in Greenville, South Carolina. According to family lore, she was struck by ball lightning while sleeping in her bassinet during a thunderstorm. She spent the first five years of her life in Kearney, New Jersey in the same three-family house as her paternal grandparents, and her summers at the Bauer family property on Bodin Lake in Upstate New York. 

July 27th, 1955 in (Age 69)