Interview with Katherine Wolf of Hope Heals

Building a Life That Can Handle Hard Things

A conversation between Katherine Wolf and Will Acuff. You can listen to the full interview here.

From The Good Hard Story Podcast, Episode 118 — March 17, 2026

Katherine Wolf — stroke survivor, author, speaker, and co-founder of Hope Heals — sat down with Will Acuff, co-founder of the Nashville nonprofit Corner to Corner and author of No Elevator to Everest, for an episode of The Good Hard Story Podcast. The two have known each other for years through Hope Heals Camp, where Will and his wife, Tiffany, have brought their family many times.

Their conversation moves through disability and adoption, the daily practices that sustain a hard life, the theology that sent the Acuffs into a low-income Nashville neighborhood, the entrepreneurs Corner to Corner is helping launch, and what it means to build a life that can handle hard things.

Katherine Wolf: Welcome, Good Hard Story guests. I'm so excited to introduce you to my friend, Will. Hey, Will — I'm so glad you're here.

Will Acuff: Hey, Katherine, it is so good to see you.

Katherine Wolf: It is so good to see you, and to think of sweet, precious Penelope, Raelyn, and Tiffany. I love that I know your whole family. That's special.

Will Acuff: I've never done a podcast where somebody knows my whole crew. It feels like a tender reconnection, so thank you for having me.

Katherine Wolf: It's very special — which we'll talk about in a moment. Actually, let's talk now. I'll ask you the first question. I want to start with the thing we most have in common: disability. We first met because you and your wife, Tiffany, brought your family to Hope Heals Camp many years ago — it may even have been the first year. Will you tell me more about your family's journey into life with disability?

Will Acuff: Our family grew through adoption. Both of our kids came through domestic adoption out of Memphis, Tennessee. When our son was around two and a half, he stopped sleeping. That was our first real indication — and I don't mean the occasional fuzzy nights all parents have. For roughly three and a half years, he would only sleep about two nights out of ten. So we started the process I'm sure so many of your listeners know, where you go to the first doctor, who leads you to the second and the third and the fourth, and before you know it you've been on every floor of the children's hospital.

Katherine Wolf: Oh gosh, yeah.

Will Acuff: We started to gather diagnoses, and fast forward — it was moderate to severe autism. I'd say high support needs on the emotional and physical regulation side. He's verbal, but unable to self-regulate in a steady, consistent way. He also has a cognitive disability, so understanding what's happening below the surface can be a big challenge. And then, more recently — this developed about three or four years ago — he was diagnosed with a rare neuromuscular genetic disease that essentially means his muscles can't process glycogen well. So if he tries to, say, run a 40-yard dash, halfway through his muscles lock up and start breaking down, flooding his kidneys. When that happens, we end up in the hospital for seven or eight days while they clear out his kidneys and restore his body to baseline. He's an amazing dude who has so much going on. When you and I first met at camp, our family limped in on our last breath — that's what it felt like at the time.

Katherine Wolf: How old would Raelyn have been then? Both your kids were little.

Will Acuff: Penelope was maybe one, I think.

Katherine Wolf: I really think she was teeny tiny. It always touched me because of her name — remind me, her middle name is Hope?

Will Acuff: Yes. In Spanish, Esperanza.

Katherine Wolf: I love that. You know what — maybe she was born after the first year y'all attended camp, because I remember Tiffany telling me she had a baby whose middle name was Hope after coming to Hope Heals Camp.

Will Acuff: A hundred percent. What actually happened is kind of a crazy story — we changed her middle name while we were there at camp.

Katherine Wolf: I love this.

Will Acuff: We had this profound experience. Our daughter is also Afro-Latina, and we wanted to reflect her roots, so we legally changed her name to Esperanza — Hope in Spanish.

Katherine Wolf: After Hope Heals.

Will Acuff: After Hope Heals Camp.

Katherine Wolf: Oh my goodness. How have I never heard that you changed her name after Hope Heals? That touches me so deeply.

Will Acuff: That's better than a tattoo, right?

Katherine Wolf: Seriously, yes. The year after my stroke, several people named their babies Katherine — when I lived. I'll never get over it until the day I die. It's the coolest thing ever.

Will Acuff: This does come close.

Katherine Wolf: And when I'm in the airport, people run up to me and say, "Hope, Hope, Hope!" And I'm like, well — not my name, but yes. Yes, it is. I'll take it.

Will Acuff: I love that. Hope Heals was so transformative for us; it became our son's favorite week of the year. He would talk about it endlessly. I think we've been six or seven times, including the COVID year.

Katherine Wolf: I love the COVID year. That counts — Hope Heals at Home was special. Reading your book, I realized even more how aligned you are with us in so much of your thinking — the voices you turn to and read. You see the world the way we do. People like Henri Nouwen, who've been so special in our story, clearly mean a lot to you. We'll get to that in a moment. But first: you and Tiffany are handling so much. Your life is overloaded with responsibilities, between your family and the organization you lead. I know you've spent years figuring out daily rhythms that can sustain you as you show up for your life. I'll never forget hearing the details of your morning routine after you shared them one year at camp. Will you share some of those practices with us?

Will Acuff: Absolutely. Katherine, what I realized on the journey was that I kept waiting for some expert, some doctor, to give me the playbook that would fix my son and return our family to a certain state. Over time I realized — oh, that's not actually the journey. The journey is: how do I change now, from the inside out, so I can show up for my family no matter what the day brings? For me it was a shift from waiting for something else to change so I could be okay, to saying, no — I'm going to change and be okay and step in.

With my son's sleep disorder, for years I'd say, "This is just my life. This is just how hard it is. I have to wake up at two or three in the morning and start my day, and there's nothing I can do." Then I realized there was actually a pattern to some of his sleep, and I could set my alarm to get up a little earlier than him. Not on the days he starts at one — he beats me if he wakes up at one — but a couple of days a week he was getting up around five. So I figured, if I get up at four, I can start my day intentionally and connect with myself and with God before I step into it. That also meant doing the hard work of being disciplined about going to bed early and resetting my whole rhythm. And practical things, too: I couldn't leave my bedroom or I'd wake him, so I moved a little single-cup coffee maker next to my bed and put a chair near the window.

I set up a morning routine where the first thing I did was get quiet and sit before the Lord and connect with myself. One of the early practices I still do every day: I was never taught in my faith journey to connect with myself. I was taught that the journey of faith is knowledge of God, and knowledge of self only to the extent that you know you need Jesus — after that, no more knowledge of self. For me, that meant I had no window into what I was thinking and feeling, or what the Holy Spirit might be leading me toward. So that first part of the morning is me being still with that cup of coffee, asking, "What am I feeling right now?"

It might be, "I'm feeling a lot of fear." Okay — instead of ignoring that fear, what would it look like to move toward it with curiosity and compassion? "I'm really afraid about that meeting with my son's school. I'm worried we're too much for them and they're going to kick us out." What's behind that fear? "That we'll never find a place where he gets what he needs." And following it all the way down: "I don't know how to trust the Lord with this. This fear feels too big for God." Okay — how do I invite the Lord into that level of vulnerability in my innermost heart, and then trust that the Holy Spirit is alive and well and abiding in me, and can meet me in that fear? I start every day with a process like that.

Katherine Wolf: I love that. That's incredibly powerful. I resonated deeply with your book, and from knowing you — you're a pastor's kid, a missionary to New England from North Carolina, so you got all the baggage, no doubt. A faith that relied heavily on fear to inform how you viewed God, instead of an invitation for God to partner with you. The way you articulate now recognizing the power of the Holy Spirit with you, guiding you — I think that's so cool. You're so cool. Here's another way you're really cool: you and Tiffany decided to move into a low-income neighborhood in Nashville almost 20 years ago. What prompted that choice?

Will Acuff: As I mentioned, I was raised in the church — a pastor's kid, church planter, all of that, in New England. But I never got a fully fleshed-out theology of neighbor. How do you love your neighbor as yourself? In 2002, I was fortunate to go on a trip to Nairobi with a doctor who was an expert in the AIDS pandemic. We went to learn what business leaders and faith leaders were doing to love their community, which was being ravaged by AIDS. That experience woke me up to the fact that I didn't know how to love my neighbor — that most of my life was focused on my own success.

I'd love to say I came home and changed everything, but that wouldn't be true. At the time I was in a touring band, playing everywhere from Live at the Apollo to the Hard Rock in Dallas, and the band was so good at propping up my ego. I did that thing where, if a teenager gets a thumping noise in the car, they just turn up the radio instead of getting it fixed. I tried to turn up the radio on the Holy Spirit. God was clearly saying, "I want your life to look like this," and I was like, "I'm not going to listen." In my experience, God gives us the loving whisper first — and if we ignore it, we often get the loving sledgehammer.

Katherine Wolf: That's ugly.

Will Acuff: Because he wants us to have the best life — and the best life is becoming who we really are. We had a health crisis on our honeymoon. Our honeymoon ended in the emergency room, which is not how you want it to end. That was a moment where everything I thought I was building in support of my ego — my false self, maybe I'd say — God destroyed. That was two years of the Lord reforming me and reforming Tiffany. In the aftermath, we knew we had to get a theology of neighbor, and we didn't know how except by moving into a historically low-income community. So we moved in, and Tiffany jumped into the deep end. She got a job at the men's prison as a job-training specialist, helping guys come home to employment.

Katherine Wolf: Wow.

Will Acuff: We opened our front doors and did life with these men as they came home. And what we consistently saw was that we had these amazing image-bearers. As C.S. Lewis put it, you've never met a mere mortal — never in your life. We should all be running around going, "Have you seen this human? They're incredible!" That should be our day-to-day. We were seeing these neighbors, but they didn't have a bridge of opportunity to express that in a way that would get them out of poverty and keep them out. So we launched a nonprofit to do that.

Katherine Wolf: Hold on — I'm asking you about that right now. You co-founded an incredible nonprofit in Nashville called Corner to Corner that comes alongside underestimated entrepreneurs to launch and grow their own businesses. I love the word underestimated, by the way. Tell me more about the dangers of being underestimated. But before you answer — I just have to say, Corner to Corner is so cool. When you took the stage at Praxis — I don't even think we knew the other was there yet — I just smiled ear to ear with pride. Of course: ownership ends poverty. Let's do this. Your riveting TED Talk moment was explosive. So good, Will. Anyway — you tell it.

Will Acuff: Thank you, Katherine. You have such a gift of encouragement. The basic idea is that ownership ends poverty. If we create more owners who become the economic engines of their families — and then, as they grow, of their whole neighborhoods, as they become employers — we'd see massive change. We launched with one site and 13 graduates. Fast forward, and we've now launched right around 1,800 entrepreneurs. Last year we put $46.7 million back into the neighborhood economy.

And it's neighbors like one of my favorites, a woman named Kayla Hall — shout out to Kayla and the City Juicery in Nashville. She has an organic juice business. Think of those tiny juice shots that cost like twelve dollars, where you're always like, "How is this so expensive? The carrots weren't that expensive." Kayla came to us to launch her juice business because she wanted to radically change life for her and her daughter. After graduating, she got a little brick-and-mortar booth at the farmers' market. A couple of months in she calls and says, "Hey, this Walmart juicer I bought — the kind you or I could put in our kitchen, Katherine — that's what I'm using for the business, and it's smoking. It was not made for this level of production. I think it's going to melt through the table."

She asked if Corner to Corner could loan her the money to upgrade. So we loaned her $1,000 for something industrial, and she repaid us in six weeks from her increased revenue. We were so impressed that — we've got partners at Goldman Sachs, who have a great female business-training program in New York — we connected her there. Morning two of her time in Manhattan, she texts me: "Got them." I said, "What do you mean, got them?" And there's an image of a contract. She'd convinced Goldman Sachs to order 200 units of her juice — her biggest sale to date.

Katherine Wolf: Oh my gosh.

Will Acuff: They were so impressed they invited her to ring the bell at the New York Stock Exchange, so she could see a vision of where her business is going.

Katherine Wolf: Right.

Will Acuff: This was 18 months ago. Fast forward — last week, Katherine, she sent me a picture of herself standing in front of a wall of boxes, because Goldman Sachs just ordered 2,700 of her juices. She's given herself the best job she'll ever have, her daughter is working in the juice shop with her, and she's growing by leaps and bounds. And we have 1,800 of those stories. But the part that makes my heart beat faster —

Katherine Wolf: My heart's already beating faster, Will. This is glorious.

Will Acuff: — is seeing neighbors come alive with their God-given purpose. You hear so much in the workplace about quiet quitting. Quiet quitting is a symptom of not being aligned with who God made you to be. One of the reasons I love entrepreneurship so much is that it becomes a filter to figure out who you are and what you can bring to the table that reflects your deepest self.

Katherine Wolf: Our coffee shop, Mint Coffee and Goods in Atlanta — half of our workforce has disabilities. As we've done a deep dive into what work does for a human soul, I've realized: work is dignity. It's deeply dignifying to have a place to go and work with your hands. Work is community — a place to invest socially. Work is purpose. Work is a lot of things I never really thought about before this deep dive. And you're obviously changing lives — generations of lives. But you're also giving a true glimpse into how to be a human being, how to have meaning in this world. It's glorious. So could you tell my listeners and me how to participate in this work? What are some ways we can be consumers who create economic equality in this world?

Will Acuff: A big thing: if you want to learn more about Corner to Corner, just go to cornertocorner.org. I'd also say, if you're a ministry leader or a pastor, or engaged in your local church — last year we launched a national platform to bring this program to other communities. It's called Kingdom Founders. We just helped the Charlottesville area lead three classes, and we're talking with several other states right now. But if you're listening and wondering, "How do I support local?" —

Katherine Wolf: Seriously.

Will Acuff: Find the business in your neighborhood — maybe the small, overlooked one. Drive past the big-box store and give that small local person a shot. The reality is, we can say we want local business, but if we don't shop there, they can't stay there. So vote with your dollars.

Katherine Wolf: It's fascinating — the importance of moving our dollar, which is our vote, to local. That's what changes opportunity for people in our city.

Will Acuff: For sure. And Katherine, I'd add: if your church starts catering with some of these folks, that can change their whole financial year. If your business caters with them — there are ways to use these local entities. It might not be as seamless as an online order form that takes two minutes; sometimes these local folks don't have that robust infrastructure. But if you're willing to sacrifice an extra 30 minutes, you can support local, and you'll be shocked at how good the product is.

Katherine Wolf: You're actually giving a huge advertisement for Mint Coffee, I've got to be honest — because we're about to launch a catering business for that very reason, to make Mint more sustainable in our community by having businesses cater breakfast, lunch, and coffee there. So thank you for that. We'll do it in Atlanta, in Nashville, and all over the world, because it's the coolest. That's a very important point for our listeners.

Okay — Will, you recently wrote an incredible book, No Elevator to Everest. It's incredibly good; I just finished it. It lays out the unseen work of creating a life that can handle the hard stuff, and I could not be more aligned with it. First, I have to ask: have you always been a person who can handle hard stuff? And if not, how did you develop that ability?

Will Acuff: Thank you, Katherine — and thank you for reading the book. That means the world to me. In my life, I learned how to find problems and solve problems. That's how I was raised — be a problem solver. There's a lot of good in that, but it meant I only had one move. So in our home, what the book details is that I approached my son as if he were a problem to solve. And that was a losing game. Then my wife — and I have her blessing to share this — Tiffany experienced acute clinical depression: hard to get out of bed some days, suicidal ideation, all of it, in the face of our challenges and from her own trauma story.

Katherine Wolf: As a special-needs mother and someone in the disability space, I'll say — tragically, suicidal ideation among parents is prolific.

Will Acuff: A hundred percent. And I approached Tiffany with the same problem-fix mindset — which, by the way, doesn't work. Neither strategy was working, but it was the only move I had. I got to a breaking point where every day was worse than the one before. I was past limping — I was dead.

Tiffany found a trauma retreat led by some great counselors, and she came home with sparks of new life. It was a long journey after that — don't hear me say quick fix — but she said, "Will, you need to go too." My response was, "Aren't we therapized enough as a family?" — which, side note, is never a good idea: inventing words to argue with your spouse. Thankfully, Tiffany is a very firm person, and she said, "No, this is not a discussion. You're going." So I went. In our family we call it trauma camp.

I went with the arrogance of, "I'm here to get the language to fix my wife" — again, problem-solving. But by the end of day two, they were so skilled they cracked me open, reconnected me with myself, and made me realize I'd been treating myself as a problem to solve rather than a person to know and enjoy. That shift let me hear God's voice of unconditional love for me — like the Prodigal Son story: "Welcome home. Do you hear the music? The band's warming up, and the party is for you." It started to thaw me out, to heal me. It's hard to describe.

But I knew I was going home to a very hard situation. Anybody who's done a weekend retreat or conference knows you come back like, "Yes!" — and a week later you're toast again. I knew I had to shift all my rhythms. So I got a blank sheet of paper and asked, "How am I going to cultivate a life of joy — joy that comes from within, not from my circumstances?" I started to experiment. I looked at my own life as a joy lab. What's in the book is both the stories — the real challenges that were happening — and the daily practices that started to cultivate rhythms of joy. Fast forward, I've been living that way for five years now, and I have more joy in my life than I ever thought possible. And I'm still getting my butt kicked every day. That part hasn't changed.

Katherine Wolf: I have this amazing group of women who are all living really hard stories. We call ourselves the SOS Club — Sisters of Suffering. It's beautiful and tragic and complicated, and there's no fixing the major stuff going on in our lives. One week at the group, I prayed — and it was totally the Holy Spirit, because I don't even remember thinking these thoughts — I just prayed, "Lord, give us relief through our gratitude." It stunned me, because that's where joy is. We may have relief from our terrible suffering, but we may not. But we can have relief through the gratitude we feel. That's what you've uncovered in your joy lab.

Will Acuff: Bitterness and gratitude can't exist at the same time in the same heart. And one of the missing pieces of Christian discipleship that I feel so strongly about — at least in American Christianity; other cultures have done this differently — is that we have not cultivated Spirit-led self-awareness. How do I go deep, and how do I invite the Holy Spirit into those spaces?

I think about what Jesus says in John 14: "I'm going to send you the Spirit. The Spirit will remind you of everything I said" — pointing us back to the words of Jesus. But Jesus also says the Spirit will teach you all things. I went to seminary, and in the Greek, all things means all things. So literally, you have the power that raised Christ from the dead dwelling within you, longing to pull every part of your life into alignment with what God is doing. But that requires daily listening, daily attunement. If we don't create the rhythms and practices that do that, the rhythms of this world will just wash you away.

Katherine Wolf: Absolutely. And your faith becomes so rigid and impersonal — just checking the box, missing out on the abundant life in Jesus.

Will Acuff: Yes. "I have come that you may have life, and have it to the full." He doesn't say someday. I was raised with, "You'll have the full life once you die." And I was like, wait a minute — I don't think that's what Jesus is saying. I think he's saying the kingdom has come. It has drawn near.

Katherine Wolf: That's right.

Will Acuff: And I'm not just waiting around for heaven anymore.

Katherine Wolf: No. Will, you've made it through disillusionment. So who is God to you in this season of your life? What are you learning about him right now?

Will Acuff: The fresh bread that's been happening even in the last couple of days — I have this image of myself as a little boy running his heart out, looking up and locking eyes with God, who's running right alongside me. It's a sense of adventure and exploration, a sense of, "I want you as your full self." What the Lord has been showing me lately is that if he's able to do more than we can ask or imagine, then I can never out-idea God. His ideas will always be bigger, better, more transformative, more healing. So one of the practices I'm developing is praying in a way that scares me a little. "God, if you did this — wow." Really asking God to do wild and crazy things in my life, my family, our community, our country, the world.

Katherine Wolf: I love that, Will. And why am I not surprised that those are the prayers you're praying? Listen — we ask every guest the same question at the end, which I feel like you've kind of already answered, but let's say it again. On The Good Hard Story Podcast, my listeners and I know too much. We know that life is both good and hard at the very same time. Nothing in this life is one note — it's both at once. So: what's good in your story? What's hard in your story? And how do you live in the tension of both?

Will Acuff: There are so many things that are good. I feel like the Lord has brought me to a place where, both in my work and in my family, I'm God's instrument being played in tune. There's a unique joy to that I don't take for granted. Most days I have a couple of moments of transcendent gratitude where I feel like the luckiest man alive.

Another good, related to my son directly: he feels everything so purely and so big. He doesn't try to temper his experience for you or your expectations, so there are moments where I get to experience wonder and awe through him. That's a wonderful gift. The other day — he's on track to be six-five, six-six, a big dude, and he loves basketball — he touched a ten-foot rim for the first time. The way he ran around that court, screaming and yelling with the raw joy of it, was so childlike and so wonderful. And with Tiffany, there's a unique intimacy that comes from shared suffering.

Katherine Wolf: I agree.

Will Acuff: It's hard to describe how good it can be to know that someone else gets the profound darkness you've been through. It's not all our marriage has — I'm not saying that — but it's one of the things that makes me feel very seen, and I'm grateful.

As for a hard thing: our son is really high-support, and for the last seven or eight months he's been at a residential school with full-time medical and academic support. He comes home every weekend, but it's been really hard. I miss him so much. Almost every night, when I'm turning off the lights and I walk by his room and he's not home with us, there's this deep sorrow — a sense of, "This is not how I want it to be." And yet this is how wisdom and the Lord's calling are asking us to lead our family right now.

Katherine Wolf: How old is Raelyn?

Will Acuff: He's 13, almost 14. So that's probably one of the harder things in our life right now.

Katherine Wolf: I definitely don't want to insult you by putting a bow on that one. That is hard. And I'm so sorry.

Will Acuff: Thank you, Katherine.

Katherine Wolf: It's beautiful to have this conversation with you, Will. You're a delight to talk to — so wise and so kind. Where can people get more from you and what we talked about today? I'm guessing the book is available everywhere books are sold?

Will Acuff: Absolutely. Go to your local bookshop. They won't have it, but ask them to order it. That's one way to do it.

Katherine Wolf: Hold on — slow down. Say that again, because I don't think people know that. I've never said it on here. Guys: don't buy all your books from Amazon. Go to your local bookstore — they'll order books for you for free, and then you buy it. It's really cool.

Will Acuff: Yes, that's a way to get it locally. Otherwise, go to whatever store you most buy books from. No Elevator to Everest. And if you want to follow along, I post pretty regularly — encouraging stuff — at willjoyacuff on Instagram. That's the best place to connect with me directly.

Katherine Wolf: You've been posting a lot recently — tips for things like this morning routine. It's really good content, Will. Well done.

Will Acuff: Thank you. And I'll say, Katherine — I'm sure you've seen this — there are so many books on how to parent kids with disabilities that are tactical: have this chart, this schedule, feed this food. But there's next to nothing about how you change internally so you can show up with full presence. My heartbeat for the community affected by disability is to go straight there. I've got no tactics on how to produce an if-then chart for your child with autism. What I do have are ways to go deep with yourself so you can show up as a loving presence for that child.

Katherine Wolf: Absolutely. Are you in touch with Amy Julia Becker? Do you all know each other?

Will Acuff: No — I would love to know her.

Katherine Wolf: You must. She's amazing. Do you know Take the Next Step Podcast and all she's doing in this space? We'll talk offline, but she is a trusted voice. For all my listeners, and for you: Take the Next Step Podcast by Amy Julia Becker. Look it up. It's incredible — Hope Heals is helping sponsor all the episodes this season, and she's having incredibly important conversations.

Will Acuff: Awesome.

Katherine Wolf: She's really informing families like your own about how to have a hopeful imagination for the future by just taking the next step. You must connect. You're so right.

Will Acuff: I would love to. And Katherine, I'd be remiss if I didn't say: you and your family, and what you started, have given my family an incredible gift. Many times we didn't know how to hold hope for ourselves, and you held it for us and with us. Jay has been such a dear friend. Just know that your thumbprint is all over our story in the most beautiful way.

Katherine Wolf: You're so kind to say that. Right back at you — the Acuff family has deeply informed Hope Heals Camp for many years. I remember one year I had Tiffany share on the women's panel, and she brought many women in that room to tears with her words and her heart. Y'all are an incredibly thoughtful, important part of our community, and always will be — because the reason Hope Heals exists is to give healing hope to hurting people. We're planning on sticking around and doing that for a long time. It feels like Corner to Corner, and the Acuff family specifically, are very aligned in that — we're all seeking to give healing hope to hurting people. So let's keep going together.

Will Acuff: Amen. Count me in on that mission.

Katherine Wolf: God bless you. I should tell you — Hope Heals also exists to create sacred spaces of belonging and belovedness, and that's exactly what Corner to Corner is doing. So once again, we're super aligned. I'm just so glad to know you, Will, and your whole family.

Will Acuff: Thank you, Katherine.

Katherine Wolf: Thank you for this beautiful conversation.

Will Acuff: This has been such a gift. Thank you.

Katherine Wolf: It's a gift to me. God bless you, Will.

Will Acuff: God bless you, Katherine.