User:Kathy Kattenburg
I was born in Glen Cove, NY, in 1950. I have lived in and around NYC all my life. I grew up in a very cultured and intellectual family; my parents, both European (my father Dutch; my mother French), were both Holocaust survivors. Both my parents -- but especially my father -- instilled in me, and in my brother, a very strong belief in social justice. That belief, for my father, was very much informed by his experience as a European Jew who lost most of his extended family (including his mother) to the Nazi genocide. So I have always felt that, in an indirect sense, I am a Holocaust survivor, too. Certainly my worldview and my deepest values and sense of who I am were shaped by the Holocaust, although I was born in the USA five years after WWII ended.
Growing up, I was surrounded by books and music. I am a bookworm and always have been. Needless to say, my reading tastes have evolved over the years, from a steady diet of books about horses and dogs to my present-day interests, which include history, political analysis, memoir, and literary fiction.
I earned a B.A. in English literature from Drew University in Madison, NJ. After graduating from college, I started working in book publishing, in editorial production. I did that, for various publishers, for the next 20 years. I began freelancing (copyediting, proofreading, and writing) in 1993, when my daughter was 3 years old. (She is now 17, and will be starting her freshman year at Barnard College in the fall -- planning to major in, what else? English literature).
My marriage ended in 2000, and for the past seven years I have been struggling to find work that pays the bills AND gives me at least some professional satisfaction. I worked for two years as a bookseller at a Barnes & Noble in Clifton, NJ. I went back to school and got a degree in paralegal studies, but ended up not working in that field. I tried teaching, and am still undecided about whether to continue teaching. I also started writing a blog, Liberty Street, about four years ago, and that has been enormously satisfying. Wish I could find a way to do it full-time and yet not starve to death.
Very recently (like, a few days ago), I discovered newassignment.net, and through that site, I found out about Citizendium. I love Wikipedia, but it does have its shortcomings. The concept behind Citizendium sounds both intriguing and exciting. In the event, I feel like there is room for many kinds of open-source formats, of which Wikipedia and Citizendium are two wonderful examples.
Tasks: start a new article • add basic, wanted or requested articles • add definitions • add metadata • edit new pages
Welcome to the Citizendium! We hope you will contribute boldly and well. Here are pointers for a quick start. You'll probably want to know how to get started as an author. Just look at Getting Started for other helpful "startup" links, our help system and CZ:Home for the top menu of community pages. Be sure to stay abreast of events via Twitter. You can test out editing in the sandbox if you'd like. If you need help to get going, the forum is one option. That's also where we discuss policy and proposals. You can ask any administrator for help, too. Just put a note on their "talk" page. Again, welcome and have fun! Peter Ingerman 10:11, 9 May 2007 (CDT)