Biography
Scottish poetess, Kate Rennie Archer (given name Catherine), was born in Glasgow to a traveling shipping family. She spent most of her childhood moving around the Europe, as well as lived both in Malta and Algiers. She married a Scottish Royal Horse Artillery Captain, Douglas Archer in 1912. She was not only a trained teacher specializing in literature, folk lore and music, but she served in the Red Cross as a qualified nurse during the World War I. Her husband's unstable health forced the couple and their young son Douglas Jr. to move from Edinburgh, in search of a milder weather, to California in 1927. Always known for her active spirit, she and her 10-year-old son made history by traveling on a 'shoestring budget from San Francisco to Glasgow' in the 1930's, a voyage which received wide press coverage in the US. At the outbreak of the World War II the Archer's supported the war efforts in the Bay Area while their son Douglas Jr. Archer joined the military serving under the Royal Canadian Air-Force in Great-Britain. Deeply effected by the sights and aftermath of the two wars, many of her writings are about war and portrayals of the psychological effects of these events.
Kate Rennie Archer's lifelong passion for writing poetry started at a very early age. Her first poem was published in "Glasgow Weekly" at 12 years of age. In the Bay Area she devoted over a decade to teaching creative writing at Dominican College in San Rafael, and established a Poetry Workshop at 1515 Gough Street in San Francisco in the 1950's. Never forgetting her roots, she was passionate interpreter and advocate of Scottish poetry through lectures, readings, and radio programs. Authoring either under a name of Kate Rennie Archer or K.R.A., she steadily contributed poetry through out her life to newspapers and journals, such as New York Times, Oakland Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, Maple Leaf, The Carmel Pine Cone-Cymbal. Her main body of work remains the following published collections of poetry:

    Jock Tamson's Bairns: and other poems, Glasgow, Gowans, 1934.
    Tumbleweed Trail, San Francisco, Ca, Canterbury Press, 1936.
    Petals of the Quelder-Rose. Mills College, Oakland, ca, Eucalyptus Press, 1940.
    Recurrent Vigil, Berkeley, Ca, Gillick Press, 1943.
    Coffee Shop, Berkeley, Ca, Gillick Press, 1947.
    Persimmon Harvest, San Francisco, Ca, The Abbey Press, 1955.
    Night Clerk, Western Union: of time and communications, Glenwood Edition, 1960's

Kate Rennie Archer on the vocation of a poet:

"We are not spectacular because poetry as an art has no pictures to show, no music to soothe and charm, it is a reserved and solitary process, and only comes to notice as protest or prophecy, as encouragement or condemnation in emergency".