Katie is a writer, reader, and a lover of the macabre who has built an entire career around her inability to leave well enough alone. She enjoys hunting for stories that are strange enough to keep her awake, helping writers make their work sharper and more compelling, and asking perfectly reasonable editorial questions such as, “What if we killed him?” and “Can this be more disturbing?”

Katie has always had an unfortunate enthusiasm for the unusual. While other girls were reading about princesses and ponies, she engulfed herself in stories about ghosts, monsters, murder, psychological trauma, and the comforting realization that absolutely nothing is as it seems.

She writes dark fiction herself, because one apparently needs hobbies outside of editing other people's nightmares. Her work tends toward horror, dark fiction, morally questionable people, existential dread, dysfunctional relationships, and the general human tendency to make one catastrophically bad decision after another. She believes books should make you feel something—preferably several things at once—and that the best stories leave a little blood on the page. Her editorial philosophy is simple: Find the strange thing. Make it stranger. Make it matter. And, whenever possible, make it hurt.

A graduate of SNHU with a BA in Creative Writing and English, she is currently working on obtaining her MFA in Creative Writing and English at SNHU as well. Her debut novel, Stress Test, (https://a.co/d/0bB6eILx) a snarky, satirical view of life as a woman in her mid-20’s was self-published in 2011 and won first honorable mention in the 2015 Beach Book Festival. Katie was born in Detroit and raised in the suburbs. You can keep tabs on her at https://www.facebook.com/katedockeraywriter/ and at https://www.instagram.com/dockke/

At OSP, Katie functions as our resident literary executioner and narrative surgeon, bringing a unique blend of sharp professional insight and cheerful malice to the team. She has an uncanny ability to take a manuscript, find its pulse, and then deliberately make it race. She is the team member most likely to look at a perfectly happy ending and ask how many monsters can fit into the final chapter. Katie’s presence ensures that OSP's projects are never boring, rarely safe, and always beautifully, hauntingly memorable.

Senior Editor