Katie Goldman was born in New York City in 1960 and grew up in Los Angeles, where she attended public schools, skipping one grade. As a child, she was influenced by her mother, Susan Goldman Rubin, who has published several books, including two novels for young adults. Rubin bought her children books regularly and encouraged them to develop the library habit.

Thanks to this encouragement, Goldman was always a great reader. She also showed an early interest in writing: after being heartbroken over the ending of Dr. Doolittle, she wrote an additional chapter to provide a more satisfying conclusion. In high school, she took creative writing classes, where her short stories always came out reading more like first chapters of novels.

After high school, she chose to attend the University of California at Santa Cruz because that institution's loosely structured curriculum allowed her to pursue...