About the Author:

Katherine Macdonald is a 2005 graduate of Bryn Mawr College. This essay is a web- published version of her thesis, written for the Bryn Mawr English Department; her advisor and first reader was Professor Jonathan Kahana -- her second reader was Professor Joseph Kramer.

Katherine originally comes from the north of New Hampshire, but moved to Pennsylvania shortly after entering college. At time of posting (June 2005), she lived with her partner and her partner's family in Amish country, and worked as an articles editor for the online speculative magazine Strange Horizons. She plans to continue her studies in folklore and its modern mass media applications, and looks forward to future work done in these related fields.