I am a writer.
Writing is the way I understand myself, this beating heart, and the beating hearts around me. Nature is simpler, even in all of its complexity and mystery — it doesn’t ask for us to understand the inner workings to revel in its beauty. Yet humanity asks for more, we long to understand ourselves and our fellow travelers. Perhaps this is why going outside is so deeply healing — we remember we are part of the simplicity.
Three things have been true about me since I was a child — I love being outside, I love to move my body, and I love to create, or be immersed in the worlds created by others. As much as I intrinsically loved these ways of being, they were also places of safety — and when I turned away from them during my late teens and early twenties, my soul became untethered, lost. For many years, I stayed away, wondering — is this what I really love or is it simply an escape from the cards I have been dealt? It took a long time and some painful departures to understand how I could have chosen anything, but I chose to come alive through art and a connection to self and the natural world.
From 2015-2020, I lived nomadically in a self-renovated vintage Airstream and have called hundreds of places home.
I wrote and photographed my first book as a love letter to the nomadic community, builders creating home in tiny wheeled dwellings, and dreamers everywhere called The Modern Caravan, which was published on March 1, 2022.
My second book, a memoir, is slowly being revised. I hope to have it published in the next few years — maybe before my 40th birthday! Until then, I am writing regularly for my newsletter — I’d love to have you join me there.
Hawks have been speaking to me for years. Trees, too. Sometimes the wind.
As a writer and a reader, I am most interested in personal narrative essay, narrative non-fiction, and memoir — though lately, poems have been flowing through me and spilling out onto the page without rhyme or reason (no really, they don't rhyme).
My wife and I started a business renovating vintage Airstreams in 2017 and made the necessary decision to close in mid-2023 to let our bodies and hearts mend — sometimes the most beautiful thing you can do is let something go that’s no longer for you.
Growing up, I was told being a sensitive soul and rebel were the worst things to be. My sensitivity allows me to stay awake to life, and my rebellion has led me to the truest version of myself. Glad I didn’t listen.
Taking care of my mental health is very important to me — running, yoga, writing daily morning pages, and therapy are essential.
I love helping others feel empowered to write their own stories.
Let’s get official.
Kate Oliver is a writer, photographer, and creative consultant. Her first book, The Modern Caravan: Stories of Love, Beauty, and Adventure, was released by Chronicle books in March 2022. From 2017-2023, she was the designer and co-founder of The Modern Caravan, a design and renovation studio specializing in restoration and custom interiors of vintage Airstream travel trailers. Along with her wife, her design work was featured in Dwell, Domino, Architectural Digest, Remodelista, PBS, and The Washington Post, and CNN, amongst other publications. She is currently revising a memoir and her writing work can be found in publications such as ROVA Magazine, The Fernweh Collective, Design*Sponge, Edible Communities, and Homecoming, her newsletter. She lives with her wife and daughter in Bloomington, Indiana.
