A native of Orangeburg, Kate Salley Palmer started her career while at the University of South Carolina where she was cartoonist for The Gamecock, the student newspaper. Her cartoon strip, Terrible Tom and the Boys, caricatured the school's administration during the late 60's in a humorous way, and was popular with the students, faculty and administration.

After graduation from USC Kate was an artist at Clemson University where she met Jim, a faculty member in the Agronomy Department. A while later Jim and Kate were married and Kate taught elementary school for two years. After two children (James, now 29, and Salley, now 26), Kate began doing political cartoons for the Greenville News and in 1978 became the first full-time editorial cartoonist in South Carolina. While a cartoonist at the News, Kate was one of three women members of the American Association of Editorial Cartoonists, won the National Freedom Foundation's Principal Award for Editorial Cartoonists, and was syndicated nationally in over 200 newspapers by News America Syndicate. Several of her cartoons were featured annually in the book, Best Editorial Cartoons of the Year. In 1984 Kate resigned from the Greenville News and free-lanced for other state newspapers while remaining nationally syndicated until 1987.

In 1990, Kate illustrated her first children's picture book, How Many Feet in the Bed by Diane Johnston Hamm, and published by Simon and Schuster. Later that year, Simon and Schuster published A Gracious Plenty, a book Kate wrote and illustrated about her Great Aunt May Zeigler in Orangeburg. In 1992, Kate illustrated Octopus Hug by Lawrence Pringle and published by Boyds Mills Press. Two other books illustration by Kate were: Night of the Five Aunties (1995) by Mesa Somer published by Albert Whitman Co. and Upstairs (1998) by Judith Ross Enderle and Stephanie Gordon Tessler published by Boyds Mills Press.

Also during the 90's Kate illustrated several Reading Recovery books for children written by various authors and published by the Kaeden Corporation. In addition, Kate started a syndicated fax caricature service for newspapers called Just the Fax, and contributed several free-lance op-ed columns for various newspapers, including ones about the Susan Smith trial (Newsday) and the OJ verdict (The State). Kate is also working on a couple of novels, Spitfire (about a family of women who write a novel) and Hoss (about a high school girl who plays football). The first chapter of Spitfire won one of the '98 awards from the SC Fiction Project.

In the fall of '98 Kate and Jim started their own publishing company, Warbranch Press, Inc. to publish Kate's children's picture books and possibly other books. The company's first book was a new edition of A Gracious Plenty, which went out of print with Simon and Schuster. The second book was The Pink House, a story of Kate's family's annual beach vacation to Edisto Island, SC. In the fall of '99, Warbranch Press published The Little Chairs, a story of a happy young family in which the father has a period of inexplicable sadness. The mother reacts by requesting the father's help in painting four little chairs for the front porch. After applying several coats of different color paints the father wants to do things again with the family. Currently Kate is seeking a publisher for her editorial cartoon restrospective/memoir and a new children's book called Don't Slam the Door. She is also offering to newspapers nationwide, via e-mail, caricatures of national newsmakers. For the latest on what Kate and Warbranch Press are doing check out www.warbranchpress.com.

Kate continues to write and present talks to various groups about political cartooning and/or writing and illustrating children's picture books.