Kate Betterton

Kate Betterton’s novel, Where the Lake Becomes the River, won the 2008 Novello Literary Award. It will be published in October, 2008 by the Novello Festival Press.

Where the Lake Becomes the River is currently featured on PUBLISHERS WEEKLY's 2008 Fall Preview of books, in the June 30th issue and online, under Hardcover First Fiction.

Novello Press announced that the Novello Literary Award will be underwritten for the next four years by the Cold Mountain Foundation, established by acclaimed author Charles Frazier and his wife, Katherine.

Novello calls Where the Lake Becomes the River, "a lush, vivid and wildly entertaining story about Parrish McCullough, a young woman trying to break free from a Southern family haunted by spirits, both real and imagined."

Parrish is caught in the crossfires of Mississippi's racial tensions, as the Civil Rights movement sweeps into the state. Protecting some Yankee Civil Rights workers who've become her friends, she takes a risk that carries her onto the razor's edge between living and dying, learns The Truth About Life After Death...and finds an unexpected romance.

Kate Betterton grew up in the Mississippi Delta. After living for many years in the north, she now makes her home in Chapel Hill, NC. Her work has been published in The Southerner and The Sun. She has worked on newspapers, in homeless shelters, in hospital psych wards and has maintained a long-term psychotherapy practice. Where the Lake Becomes the River is her first book.