Meet Kathie Giorgio

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Kathie Giorgio. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Kathie, really happy you were able to join us today and we’re looking forward to sharing your story and insights with our readers. Let’s start with the heart of it all – purpose. How did you find your purpose?

All of these questions were hard to choose from, because I generally answered, “I don’t know,” to each one. In the end, though, I realized there is a story with finding my purpose, or as I refer to it, finding my path.
The first step happened in the fifth grade, in 1971. I was living in a very conservative area of northern Minnesota. A new teacher came to my class, our English teacher, and she declared that we were going to have “Creative Writing Thursdays.”
I was already writing, but I didn’t know it. I traced pictures out of my old storybooks and I rewrote the stories the way I felt they should be. I told stories, all the time.
On the first Thursday of Creative Writing, my teacher put a record on the record player. We were to listen to the song and then just write our impressions. The song was “Oh, Shenendoah”, and the kids around me wrote things like, “There’s an ocean,” “There’s a boat,” “The sky is blue,” and so on. I wrote an entire short story, with characters, dialogue, conflict, and resolution. When I read it to the class, they were silent. From the back of the room, my teacher whispered, “Oh my god, Kathie. You’re a writer.”
She made me feel like I’d come home.
Years later, publications later, and after starting my small business, AllWriters’ Workplace & Workshop LLC, I was in a bad place emotionally. The business was struggling. My books were selling, but not like New-York-Times selling. A book I considered horrible, a novel basically about abusing and raping women, was on all the best seller lists and a movie was being made of it. I was demoralized.
I traveled to the Oregon coast, where I go every year to get away from it all and just be me. Not a wife, not a mother, not a teacher, not a small business owner. Just me – a writer. That year, I arrived, dropped my suitcases, and ran straight out to the ocean.
Some people yell at the sky, talking to God. I yelled at the ocean. I don’t know if she’s god, but she’s who I talk to. I yelled, “What do you want from me? I’ve done everything I’m supposed to. But look where I am!” Eventually, I said, “If I’m on the right path, let me find a whole sand dollar.” I’d never found a whole sand dollar there in the years I’d been coming. “A WHOLE sand dollar,” I emphasized.
Several days passed. One evening, I was walking through the fog by the ocean. The fog there is magical – it sparkles. It’s like walking in a storm of glitter. I could see two people were walking toward me, an old man and an old woman. As we got closer, the man kept veering into my path. Eventually, he stopped. He was in my face.
He didn’t say hello, He didn’t say what a nice evening it was. He said, “Have you found a whole sand dollar?”
I was stunned. “No,” I said. “I’ve been looking for one.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out three. “Choose one,” he said.
So I did. He walked away with the woman, and I’ve never seen either of them again.
I pondered about the three sand dollars for a while. Why three? And then I thought of his words. “Choose one.”
I had chosen. I picked this life. I chose to write and to make it my life. I chose to start a small business, when I had no idea at all how to run a business. A bank turned me down for a small business loan – they said “You have no business being in business.” They said my idea had no viability.
Today, AllWriters’ is international. And it’s 20 years old.
But that day – I was told I was on the right path. I’d made the right choice.
And my teacher, way back when I was eleven years old, told me I was a writer.
My purpose is writing. And my purpose is teaching.
The sand dollar hangs on a canvas behind me, reminding me every day. Especially the hard days.
I know my purpose.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

Everything I do has something to do with writing. I’m an author of 15 traditionally published books, with the 16th coming out this fall. There are 8 novels, 2 short story collections, 4 collections of poetry, and 1 collection of essays. I’ve taught writing classes for 30 years, starting in community education and continuing education. I opened my own studio, AllWriters’ Workplace & Workshop LLC, in 2005. We offer online and on-site courses and workshops in all genres and abilities of creative writing, as well as coaching and editing services. The business is now 20 years old. We’ve launched thousands of writers.
What is special about it? Well, what’s special about my writing is that I tackle the difficult subjects with absolute truth and honesty, even if that makes people uncomfortable. What’s special about AllWriters’? My faculty and I don’t teach that our students should write like us. We listen to our students, learn what they want to accomplish, what they want to say, and then we help them find their voices, so they can do just that. AllWriters’ is a community. All writers, no matter what they write, are welcome here.
You can find me at www.kathiegiorgio.org. My new book being released in the fall is a collection of poetry, called Let Me Tell You, Let Me Sing! You can find the studio at www.allwritersworkshop.com

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

The three qualities: Determination. Discipline. Belief in myself.
I would encourage people to do a lot of self-talk, and to listen to themselves. If they hear negative talk starting – I’m never going to make it, I’m not good enough, I haven’t done anything worthwhile – make yourself stop and look around. Notice what’s there. I can’t tell you the times I’ve wailed, “But I’m not on the New York Times bestseller list!” I now turn myself around to look at the shelf behind my desk that holds all 15 of my books. 15! In 14 years! All of them well-accepted, award-winners, well-reviewed.
Do I still want to be on the NYT best seller list? Oh, yes. But do I know I’m successful without it? You bet.
As for the studio, I’ve had to learn to trust in it like it’s its own separate being. The business always comes through. It always takes care of me, and I take care of my students.
So in a nutshell – work at being self-aware and keep your eyes open for the good.

Is there a particular challenge you are currently facing?

On January 17, 2024, my life, and my husband’s life, were given an incredible blow. My husband was struck, and then run over by a passenger van. He struggled to live for five months, and then died on June 19, 2025.
I am now without my partner in all things. Michael was the one person in my life who believed I could do anything. Absolutely anything. Any idea I came up with, he encouraged. He cheered for me from the front row. He lifted me up and kept me going.
I am now learning how to live completely on my own.
What am I doing? Just putting one foot in front of the other. Doing exactly what I said to do in the last question. When I hear myself saying that I’m not going to be able to make it on my own, I open my eyes and look around. I learned how to organize the taxes. I learned how to set the thermostat. Everything that Michael did, I am now doing, or learning to do. I take note of that, and then realize that I am going to make it. I already am.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.kathiegiorgio.org and www.allwritersworkshop.com
• Instagram: @KathieGio1
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kathie.giorgio.5 Also under Author Kathie Giorgio, and the business page for AllWriters’ Workplace & Workshop
• Linkedin: Kathie Giorgio
• Twitter: @KathieGiorgio

Image Credits

Author photo: Ron Wimmer of Wimmer Photography
Studio photos taken by Kathie Giorgio