About Kate Salley Palmer 

Award-winning artist, author and cartoonist Kate Salley Palmer has been writing and illustrating picture books since 1991. Her first venue into children’s books, How Many Feet in the Bed, won acclaim from Booklist. Since then, she has written and/or illustrated more than ten books. Kate is also known for her political cartoon work during the 70’s and 80’s. She was one of only two nationally syndicated women cartoonists, the first full-time newspaper editorial cartoonist in South Carolina, and a winner of the Freedom Foundation’s Award for Editorial Cartooning in 1981. In 2000, one of her cartoons appeared in Newsweek’s special issue, 100 Years in Cartoons.

Kate's political cartoon (done as t-shirt design as Chrismas gift) showing President George Bush, Sec. of State Condeleeza Rice, Sec. of State, Collin Powell, Vice-Pres. Dick Cheney and Sec. of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld as Star Wars characters after the invasion of Iraq in 2003

A native of Orangeburg, South Carolina, Kate Salley Palmer started her career while at the University of South Carolina, where she was the cartoonist for the student newspaper, The Gamecock. Her cartoon strip, "Terrible Tom and the Boys", caricatured the school’s administration during the late 1960’s in a humorous way, and was popular with students, faculty and the administration. An article in a 2007 edition of The Carolinian talks about Kate's days as a student at USC, plus other interesting aspects of her career.

After graduating from USC with a degree in elementary education, Kate took a position as artist at Clemson University. At Clemson, she met Jim, a faculty member in the agronomy (study of crops and soils) department. Jim and Kate were married in 1970, and Kate taught elementary school for two years, had two children - James (in 1971) and Salley (in 1974). Kate started doing political cartoons freelance in 1975 for The Greenville News, and in 1978 became the first full-time editorial staff cartoonist for a newspaper in South Carolina. While there Kate was syndicated nationally (one of only two women in the US) in over 200 newspapers.

Her cartoons appeared regularly in the New York Times, Washington Post and in other national outlets. In 1981 one of her cartoons won the prestigious Freedom Foundation’s Principal Award for Editorial Cartooning. In 1984, Kate resigned her position at The News and freelanced for other newspapers and syndicates until 1987.

Kate donated her national cartoons to Ohio State's Library of Cartoon Art and her state cartoons to USC Library's Political Collections.

In 1991 Kate illustrated her first picture book, How Many Feet in the Bed? for Simon and Schuster. Later that same year, Simon and Schuster published A Gracious Plenty, a book Kate wrote and illustrated about her great-aunt May Zeigler in Orangeburg. Later in the 90’s Kate illustrated several more books for national publishers, including Octopus Hug, Night ofthe Five Aunties, Upstairs and Bear Hug (2003).

In 1998, Kate and Jim founded Warbranch Press, Inc. to publish and sell Kate’s books. They are kept busy developing new book ideas, selling books, and traveling around the region attending professional conferences and other events. Books about Kate’s family were published, including The Pink House and The Little Chairs, plus the soft cover edition of A Gracious Plenty.

In 2004, frustrated that many of the children she spoke to in her school visits were unfamiliar with the story of the palmetto tree and its importance to our state’s history, Kate wrote and illustrated Palmetto – Symbol of Courage. That book, which tells the story of the Revolutionary War battle on Sullivan's Island that was the inspiration for the color and symbols on South Carolina's beautiful state flag. Later, after Kate and Jim's son made a documentary about Francis Marion for SC ETV, Kate wrote and James illustrated Francis Marion and the Legend of the Swamp Fox (2005). In 2008, after getting inspired to do the research by a question from an African-American student Kate wrote and illustrated Almost Invisible – Black Patriots of the American Revolution.

Kate also completed her memoir, Growing Up Cartoonist in the Baby Boom South: A Memoir and Cartoon Retrospective (published by Clemson University’s Digital Press in 2006). This book was 20 years in the making and chronicles Kate’s early life and cartooning career.

Kate’s next book project is a picture book about the Native Americans of South Carolina. Hopefully, it will be finished and published some time in late 2011.