Born and raised in Denver, Colorado, Kathleen's primary rural experiences in her childhood were family fishing trips and long evening walks with her dad and their dog on the golf course. After graduating from high school, she completed three years of university, including one year in Madrid, Spain.

Her first full-time rural experience came after she married Mark Waldron. They spent their first year together working for VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) in the Napa Valley in California helping a group of eighteen families get set up to build their own homes. She and Mark then moved back to Colorado to complete their degrees (BA for Mark, MA for Kathleen) and begin their family.

In the spring of 1975, they set off with their one-year-old son Levi to begin building their own log home off the grid in central British Columbia. They immigrated to Canada the following year, welcomed their daughter Rosy the year after that, and have lived in the Cariboo ever since. They still make frequent city trips where Kathleen enjoys visits to concerts, plays, museums, professional sporting events, and her otherwise all-urban family. Her rural pleasures include swimming in mountain lakes, canoeing, cycling, cross-country skiing, and hiking. The Waldrons became dual Canadian/US citizens in 1991.

Kathleen's work experience includes being a swimming instructor, playground supervisor, lifeguard, waitress, chambermaid, tree planter, house painter, teacher (kindergarten-adult), and of course, writer.