Kather­ine Howe is the New York Times best-sell­ing author of The Physick Book of Deliv­er­ance Dane and The House of Vel­vet and Glass. She is a lec­tur­er in the Amer­i­can Stud­ies pro­gram at Cor­nell, where she teach­es a class on his­tor­i­cal fic­tion. Her third nov­el, Con­ver­sion, an updat­ing of The Cru­cible set in a Mass­a­chu­setts prep school, will be out from Pen­guin in Sum­mer 2014.