[6] Katharine's sister, Elizabeth Shepley Sergeant, a 1903 graduate of Bryn Mawr College, was also a writer, who wrote books about Willa Cather (a personal friend), poet Robert Frost, and the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico.

She started out reading unsolicited manuscripts for two hours a day, then quickly moved to full-time work.

"[9] Throughout her career at The New Yorker, White proved to be deft at handling fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and "casuals" (the name the magazine gave to humor pieces).

[5] Roger Angell spent decades as fiction editor for The New Yorker and was a well-known baseball writer and poet.

Horticulture magazine stated, "Although she never claimed to be more than an amateur, her pieces, especially her famous surveys of garden catalogs, are remarkable for their fierce intelligence and crisp prose."

Her husband credited this book project with saving his own life after her death, as it gave him her words every day, and something to work on after she died.