Katherine Eleanor Saltzman was born October 19, 1904, at Mount Ayr, Iowa. She attended high school there, then Drake University where she received her B.A. degree in 1928. She received a Master of Arts degree in 1929 from the University of Iowa. She stayed on at the University of Iowa, first as editorial assistant of the Classical Journal, then as assistant in public relations for the Iowa Child Welfare Research Station.

Disabled at the age of nine by infantile paralysis, she spent much time in the Saltzman Hotel in Benton Harbor, Michigan, which was operated by her cousin Dr. William Saltzman. She died there in 1946 at the age of 41.

Saltzman was a compulsive writer, as she discusses in one of the essays in this collection, "I'm an Incurable." She wrote advice on parenting, beginning with her days with the Child Welfare Program. She wrote novels, two of which were published --Ever Tomorrow in 1936 andStuart's Hill 1946. These were well-received and won modest praise as regional novels, written in a form called "softened realism." "Grave" and "honest" are words used by several critics to describe Saltzman's work. A third novel, Carpthorne, was in production, but because of the war and Saltzman's early death, it was never published. She wrote many short stories and poems, and a good many of them were published in such journals as The Saturday Review,The Household Magazine,and Wallac'e Farmer.