Katie Howerton: Riding the Wave Until It Crashes

Story by Trista Havner

Photos by Cari Griffith

Over the last ten years, I have interviewed countless women in the pursuit of telling stories. I have sat across from women I just met, asked hard questions of strangers, and learned new things about women I thought I knew well. A journey of a thousand questions, strung together with conversations in coffee shops and schools and living rooms, all predicated on the trust that these women have generously bestowed upon me. Each woman becomes a metaphor, their life and work unfolding like a chapter in a book that I cannot wait to finish. Telling the stories of women in this city who are living and laboring in the direction of kindness and progress and inclusivity has been one of my greatest honors, so sitting across from the woman who created the space for me to start this storytelling endeavor ten years ago felt like a full circle moment. 

That woman, of course, is Katie Howerton. The visionary behind the journal arm of Our Jackson Home, Katie created a mainstay of Jackson art and storytelling. The journal has served as a conduit of culture over the last ten years, important to so many Jacksonians near and far. But I think some backstory here would be really helpful to understand the gravity of just how much the journal, and Katie, has evolved over the last ten years. 

In the fall of 2011, Katie arrived at Union University to pursue a degree in graphic design. She had been involved in yearbook in high school, and graphic design seemed the natural direction she would go. Along the way, she added a drawing degree to her repertoire. While at Union, she met Jordan, her future husband, who would play a prominent role in keeping her in Jackson. Katie spent the summer before her senior year in Turkey. While there, she decided that she would love to design a travel magazine. She was drawn to the way that food and entertainment were celebrated in these publications and began to dream about what that could look like for her current home in Jackson. There had to be a way to highlight the people who make a place, and she was going to design a magazine that would be a “personal rebrand” for Jackson. 

As her senior show approached, Katie decided that she would design a journal, in conjunction with Our Jackson Home (a podcast started by Luke Pruett, Jim Wilhelm, Anthony Kirk, and Kevin Adelsberger to tell the stories of our community), that would serve as a small-scale travel guide to navigate the good things happening in Jackson. Knowing this was a monumental task to do alone, she enlisted the help of Joshua Garcia and Courtney Searcy, who encouraged Katie to emphasize food, entertainment, and storytelling. The journal sought to be a carefully curated collection of the people and potential that made this place. Complete with a portrait of Rita Randolph and a hand-lettered logo on the cover, the first issue of Our Jackson Home: The Magazine was born, full of stories and photographs that highlighted Jackson culture. Katie had no way of knowing that her senior project, which was received with rave reviews, would become something much bigger than herself.

Katie and Jordan had plans to marry and stay in Jackson, and Katie graduated from Union without a job prospect until she was approached by theCO to continue the journal, along with wearing a few other hats — running the OJH blog, redesigning the website — that were in her wheelhouse. In 2015, she hit the ground running with the second issue of the journal and never slowed her pace, producing four issues a year until eventually settling on three issues a year through her five-year tenure as Editor-in-Chief. As the journal grew and evolved, including more community contributors and expanding its reach through storytelling and celebration of community, so did Katie. She got married, had her first child, and began to feel like her time producing the journal was drawing to a close. Naturally, she struggled with the decision to move on from the journal. Who could she trust to carry on her work? Could she distance herself in a meaningful way to experience new opportunities? Was she allowed to leave a good thing? In 2020, she decided that the time was right to hand the journal over to Courtney Searcy, a trusted fellow artist and contributor from the inception of the journal. Katie was ready to step into the next chapter of her life, knowing that what she had so carefully created was in capable and thoughtful hands.

I have known Katie for nearly ten years, and what I know to be true of her is this: if Katie deems something worth doing, she is going to do the hell out of it. Every single thing she does is done well, with care and consideration given to every detail. Since moving on from OJH, she has curated Thatch travel guides, launched an Etsy shop to sell her Disney-themed art, worked as a graphic designer creating branding for businesses, and most recently, begun leaning more into illustration, all while raising two little girls. I have watched in awe as Katie has allowed herself to wildly pursue what interests her, be fully present in that ambition, and, when the time is right, be done with it. She describes her approach as “riding the wave until it crashes,” and that could not be a more accurate metaphor for her creative endeavors — holding tight until the time is right to let go and watch the wave crash and recede. That’s pretty brave by my estimation.

The last question I asked Katie to consider was how she felt about her work. All of it, but the journal in particular. I wanted to steer her in the direction of reflection, and I intended to give her flowers. The journal has meant so much to so many, and the fact that it has lasted a decade, through changing leadership and contributors, means that she has made something special and enduring. Even the very fact that I sat across from her, interviewing yet another woman whose story I get to tell, was because of the space created for storytelling by her journal. But she wouldn’t accept the flowers. Instead, she reiterated to me that “there will always be people to carry the things that matter.” The staying power of any work, the journal included, lies in the goodness of the work. And what a good work the journal is — an ocean that endures as people and places crash on Jackson’s shore.

But what draws us back to the ocean time and time again to see what we have seen before? The sheer power and consistency of the waves. The journal is a mighty ocean, holding the stories and the culture of our home. The people who continue to create meaningful and important art may crash like waves, they may stay or go, but their work matters and will serve as beacons of light on our collective journey. Katie’s vision did that. Her good work did that.