Katherine (Kat) Feeney was born in Canberra and grew up all over Australia. When her beloved Nan first took her on the bus from Fig Tree Pocket to the big smoke for a ride on the dragon roller-coaster that haunted Queen Street’s Myer Centre, she wanted to live in Brisbane.
When the family finally moved to Brisbane a few school holidays later, Kat discovered the joy of being settled in one place and instantly became a Brisbanite!
She’s been coming up with creative ways of being settled ever since leaving Indooroopilly State High. She began (and ended) her cheffing dream at South Bank TAFE before ‘getting serious’ and moving to a journalism and economics degree at the University of Queensland. There she scored her first paid writing gig with Fairfax Media’s Brisbane Times as the resident relationships columnist “CityKat”.
Having managed to twist that start into a full time staff position, Kat covered floods, elections and urban affairs for years before managing to wrangle a helicopter to the top of Mount Coot-tha for a new job as a Nine News reporter, just as all her other journo mates were boarding flights for the bright lights down south.
She then fell in love, got married, had a baby and became even clearer in her conviction that Brisbane is the best city Down Under.
When ABC Brisbane offered her the chance to join the team and share stories about her city she couldn’t say no – not only was it a means to keep loving and living locally, it also served as proof to her ex-pat pals that Brisbane is a city full of opportunities.