Narrative description is Katherine Quintana Ranck's greatest asset as a writer. Her works powerfully preserve a fast-disappearing traditional life-style once typical in the villages of rural New Mexico.

The last of eleven children, she was born Katherine Quintana on 4 October 1942 in Santa Fe to Ramón Trujillo Quintana and Lebradita Romero Quintana. Her maternal grandmother, Sofia Madrid Romero, was the inspiration for Ranck's first published work, Portrait of Doña Elena (1982). As a young girl, Ranck was an avid reader, pulling books at random from library shelves and thus discovering the classics by accident. Her years at Leah Harvey Junior High School in Santa Fe were vital in her formation as a writer, due to the influence and encouragement of eighth-grade teacher William Gill, who introduced Ranck to the formal study of literature and critiqued her first manuscript. Immediately after graduating from high school at age...