Meet the Author - Katrin Costa
Meet Katrin Costa
Katrin Costa was born and raised in East Germany and came to Australia in 1994, carrying with her a deep belief that life could always become something more.
She arrived with little English and began building her new life one step at a time — learning the language, working, studying and adapting to a country that would eventually become home.
Her early years in Australia took her from Perth to Adelaide and later to Cairns, where she and her husband Oliver settled in 2003 after following a long-held dream of living in the tropics.
Over the years, Katrin moved from hospitality into business and accounting, eventually building the bookkeeping practice she still runs today.
Her life has been shaped by change, persistence and the willingness to begin again.
She has learned that progress rarely arrives in one dramatic moment. More often, it comes quietly — through repetition, patience, curiosity and the decision to keep moving when the outcome is still uncertain.
Katrin has always been deeply interested in people: why we believe what we believe, how fear shapes our choices, how experience changes perception, and how much of a life can shift when we begin questioning what we once accepted as certain.
That curiosity eventually led her back to the story she had carried for decades.
Writing The Girl in the Purple Jacket
Writing The Girl in the Purple Jacket became another act of beginning again.
The young woman at the centre of the story and the woman who eventually wrote it are separated by more than three decades of living, learning, questioning and change.
Katrin wanted to tell the story not only as one of escape, but as a journey of becoming — of learning to trust instinct, make difficult choices, survive disappointment and remain open to possibilities that could not yet be seen.
If the story leaves a reader thinking, If she could find another way forward, perhaps I can too, then Katrin believes the years it took to bring Karlina’s story into the world have served their purpose.
About Katrin’s Writing
German is Katrin’s first language. When she arrived in Australia at twenty-five, she spoke and understood no English.
She learned through conversation, television, books and constant practice, gradually developing not only fluency but a deep sensitivity to the sound and rhythm of words.
Her writing is deliberately simple, intimate and reflective. She is drawn to language that feels natural rather than ornamental, allowing quiet moments to carry as much meaning as dramatic ones.
For Katrin, words have weight, rhythm and tone. The right sentence does not need to explain everything. Sometimes it only needs to open the door and allow the reader to feel what lies beyond it.
The Girl in the Purple Jacket was written in English — a language Katrin did not know at twenty-five.
And the purple jacket is still with her.
