Katherine Packert Burke

media release: A Room of One's Own is glad to welcome back Katherine Packert Burke for an author event in celebration of her new release, All Us Saints.

This is an in-person event at A Room of One's Own Bookstore.

All Us Saints is a literary family drama packaged as a two-act play. In May of 1992, 17-year-old Roland St. Cloud fatally stabbed his twin sister Edna’s three best friends. The slaying became instant tabloid fodder, leading to a bestselling true-crime book and horror movie franchise. Each year on the anniversary of her family’s undoing, Edna reenacts the murders. Together, the St. Cloud family seals the windows and doors of the house and lights a grim candle. After their macabre theatrics there's nothing to do but wait for dawn, talk among themselves, and remember.

At its core, All Us Saints is the story of a family after trauma. But deeper down, Packert Burke unveils Roland’s childhood as a closeted trans girl in the early '90s, offering a scathing commentary on the cisgender gaze.

Katherine Packert Burke is a graduate of the Clarion Writer’s Workshop in San Diego and the MFA program at the University of Alabama. Her debut novel, Still Life, was published by W. W. Norton in 2024. She lives in Minneapolis.