Kate Christensen (born August 22, 1962) is an American novelist. She won the 2008 PEN/Faulkner Award for her fourth novel, The Great Man, about a painter and the three women in his life. Her previous novels are In the Drink (1999), Jeremy Thrane (2001), and The Epicure's Lament (2004). Her fifth novel, Trouble (2009), was released in paperback by Vintage/Anchor in June 2010.
Her forthcoming novel, The Astral , was excerpted in the Summer 2010 issue of Open City and will be published in hardcover by Doubleday in June 2011.
She is a graduate of Reed College, Class of 1986, and the Iowa Writers Workshop. Her essays, articles, reviews, and stories have appeared in many anthologies and periodicals, most recently The New York Times Book Review, Bookforum, Elle, The Wall Street Journal, Tin House, The Wilson Quarterly, The B&N Review, and Fivechapters.com.