Katie Hawkins-Gaar is a freelance writer, journalism consultant, and founder of the pioneering journalism mentoring website, Digital Women Leaders. She writes a newsletter called My Sweet Dumb Brain, which reaches more than 14,000 readers each week, and serves on the advisory board for the Rosalynn Carter Fellowships for Mental Health Journalism.

Katie works with a variety of clients, including The News Revenue Hub, Press Forward, Report for America, and The 19th. She’s written about topics like grief, mental health, and motherhood for national publications including The New York Times, Glamour, Vox, Outside Magazine, Fortune, and more. Katie became a freelancer in 2018 after the death of her husband — an experience that has informed and inspired much of her writing and career choices.

Prior to becoming a freelancer, Katie worked as the digital innovation faculty at Poynter, where she launched The Cohort, a newsletter dedicated to women in digital media, and co-founded 40 Better Hours, a project to improve newsroom culture. Previous to Poynter, she was the editor of CNN iReport, overseeing a team of producers responsible for soliciting, verifying, and reporting stories based on audience-submitted news.

Katie lives in Atlanta with her musician partner and young daughter, and is always on the hunt for a great book to read.