Kate Gardner has been a teacher of elementary, art, and special needs students. She was born and raised in Western Pennsylvania where she remembers playing in the woods and meadows and picking blackberries every summer. Kate is an avid photographer of people, animals, water, and landscapes. Kate lives with her husband in Southern Virginia within sight of the Chesapeake Bay. Their son lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and two children, Luke and Emily. Kate hopes "The Spider's Journey" will inspire everyone to treat spiders with care because they are "pretty, beautiful, and very useful creatures.".