Katherine Center

Katherine Sherar Pannill Center (born March 4, 1972) is an American author of contemporary fiction. Early life and education Center was born and raised in Afton Oaks, Houston, Texas. She graduated from St. John's School and from Vassar College. She won the Vassar College Fiction Prize while a student. She received her M.A. in fiction from the University of Houston, where she was the co-editor of the literary fiction magazine, Gulf Coast. Her graduate thesis, Peepshow, a collection of stories, was a finalist for the Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction. She has two sisters, one of whom is U.S. Representative Lizzie Fletcher. Career Center is the author of several books, which she has called "bittersweet comic novels." Her first novel, The Bright Side of Disaster (2006), was optioned by Varsity Pictures, and her sixth, How to Walk Away (2018), was a New York Times bestseller and Book of the Month Club pick for May 2018 and a Target Book Club pick for July 2019. Center's 2019 novel Things You Save in a Fire was New York Times bestseller, and a Book of the Month Club pick for July 2019. Her 2022 novel, The Bodyguard debuted at #11 on the New York Times bestseller list, #35 on the USA Today bestseller list, and it was a Book of the Month Club pick for July 2022. Along with Jeffrey Toobin and Douglas Brinkley, Center was one of the speakers at the 2007 Houston Chronicle Book and Author Dinner.