Born in 1973 of Greek and Irish-Australian parentage, Katerina co-founded Sappho Books and then the Gertrude and Alice caf bookstore in Sydney. Her first novel, The Glass Heart, was published by HarperCollins in 2000 and reprinted in 2001, with Greek rights sold the same year. She began Bone Ash Sky with the aid of an Australia Council grant and a residency at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Ireland and travelled to Armenia, Turkey, Lebanon and Syria for research. In 2010, whilst researching for the book, she published an article in The Australian - 'Turkey must lift veil on first Holocaust.'
