Home of the Soul

Catherine Astl holds a Master's Degree in English- Literature and Curriculum from Southern New Hampshire University, a Bachelor's in English-American Literature from University of South Florida, and is a graduate of the International Summer Schools Shakespeare and Literature program at the University of Cambridge, Cambridge, England. She also holds an Associate of Science degree in Legal Assisting and worked as a civil litigation trial paralegal for 27 years before switching to her current position teaching English Literature. Catherine lives in Wesley Chapel, Florida, where she spends time with family and friends, reads, writes, travels, and scours bookshops to add to her personal library of 2000+ books which is always expanding. After writing a trade magazine column, two non-fiction books and two novels, all of which received much acclaim in the academic and literary fields, Catherine began focusing on the stories of the people who lived in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park before it was a park. "Oliver's Crossing - A Novel of Cades Cove", was released in 2020, immediately going to the publisher's best seller list. Next came "Gatlin's Gateway - A Novel of Gatlinburg", which also made the publisher's best seller list. Another best seller, "Mountain Mulekick - A Novel of Moonshine in Cades Cove and Chestnut Flats", followed. Catherine is hard at work on her next smoky mountain historical novel.