Katrina Elizabeth DiCamillo (born March 25, 1964) is an American children's fiction author.

She has published over 25 novels, including Because of Winn-Dixie, The Tiger Rising, The Tale of Despereaux, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, The Magician's Elephant, the Mercy Watson series, and Flora & Ulysses.

She earned an English degree from the University of Florida, Gainesville, and spent several years working entry-level jobs in Clermont before moving to Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1994.

[5] In hopes of helping her sickness, the family moved to the warmer climate of Clermont, Florida,[6] when Kate was five.

[12] She was educated at public schools in the area beginning with Clermont Elementary,[13] before entering Rollins College.

DiCamillo left Rollins and worked for a time at Walt Disney World before briefly attending the University of Central Florida.

[15] She said of her life during this time that she thought she was a talented writer and expected it to be quickly recognized so she "sat around for the next seven or eight years".

[16] While working in the department, DiCamillo discovered The Watsons Go to Birmingham – 1963, a children's novel she greatly admired.

[8] DiCamillo's first book to be accepted for publication was Because of Winn-Dixie, a story about a girl who finds a stray dog and takes it home.

[7][13] She conceived the book's plot during the winter of her first year living in Minnesota, when she was missing her Florida home[20] and upset about her apartment's no-dog policy.

[15] DiCamillo gave her draft to a Candlewick sales agent who was at a Christmas party held by The Bookman.

[13] The draft was initially given to an editor who left the company on maternity leave, and it was lost in a pile of other manuscripts.

Flo Davis, the wife of a founder of the Winn-Dixie supermarket chain, sponsored DiCamillo to visit various schools in Florida and widen the book's reach.

[7] In 2004, she told the Chicago Tribune that she forced herself to write two pages every day, which took her on average 30 minutes to an hour.

[25] DiCamillo's 2010 novel Bink & Gollie, co-written with Alison McGhee and illustrated by Tony Fucile, won the 2011 Theodor Seuss Geisel Medal.

[23] In 2014, DiCamillo was named the fourth National Ambassador for Young People's Literature,[28] a post she held from January 2014 to December 2015.

[31] Her 2016 book Raymie Nightingale, about three young girls competing in a competition who end as friends, did not feel complete, and two years later DiCamillo wrote a sequel, Louisiana's Way Home.

[32] In The New York Times the author Kimberly Brubaker Bradley wrote that Beverly, Right Here "may be her finest [book] yet".

[48] DiCamillo co-wrote the Winn-Dixie screenplay and did some early consulting on The Tale of Despereaux, but was comparatively less involved.

[10][19] Many of the books follow someone who is alone and has to survive on their own, undergoing suffering and loneliness,[53] commonly the absence or loss of parents.

"[53] Other themes in DiCamillo's novels include love, salvation, emotional change, and "senseless cruelty", according to the New York Times.

[8][55] According to the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, DiCamillo's works often begin with young protagonists who are "puzzled, wanting, and waiting" but conclude that they must handle matters on their own.

[56] In a 2023 profile in The New Yorker by Casey Cep, DiCamillo first shared details of the physical and emotional abuse her father inflicted on the family before their move to Florida, where he never joined them.