Kathleen Burge was an editor of WBUR’s opinion page, Cognoscenti.
She was previously a reporter at The Boston Globe for 15 years, where she wrote stories about the law, medicine and love. In 2018, she wrote about palliative care as a national reporting fellow at the Association of Health Care Journalists.
Kathleen lived in Bosnia and Croatia for a year and worked in refugee camps. She graduated from Dartmouth College, where she studied literature and environmental studies.
She's passionate about kayaking, travel and birding with her teenage son.
Recently published
How Cog will cover the 2024 election
Amid the whirl of election news over the next 10 months, we’ll focus on the issues and ideas that are most important to voters, including health care, immigration, climate, the...
Cognoscenti's best stories of 2023
We published hundreds of essays and commentaries in 2023. These are the pieces that attracted the most readers, and took up the most space in our hearts and brains.
I left Venezuela seeking safety — my life shouldn't be fodder for a political stunt
Eduardo was one of the Venezuelans flown from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard last year, placing the community in the middle of the national debate on immigration. He and his girlfriend...
On the far shore: A journey through divorce
The editor reflects on her journey navigating divorce: "We have rituals for death and marriage, but not for the death of a marriage."
Shifting gears: One man's ode to manual transmission
Driving a stick shift speaks to the hearts of many. Jonathan D. Fitzgerald is one of those people.
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Cognoscenti’s most-read stories of all time
Since 2012, Cognoscenti has published 4,800 pieces by some 1,100 authors. From Hillary Clinton’s shimmy to the case for cohousing, these are our 15 most-read pieces of all time.
Cognoscenti's best stories of 2022
We published hundreds of essays and commentaries in 2022. Here are the pieces that attracted the most readers, and took up the most space in our hearts and brains.
Cognoscenti at 10: Our work is ‘to pay attention’
In the past decade, we’ve done our darndest at Cognoscenti “to pay attention” as Mary Oliver wrote, for “this is our endless and proper work.”
Cognoscenti at 10: Holding the ordinary and unfathomable
In 2020, the whole world got turned upside down. Cog became a record of what we were experiencing, collectively and individually, when there were so few answers to be had.
Cognoscenti at 10: Making space for human voices when the news feels too big
There’s been a lot of news in the last 10 years. Cognoscenti has tried to hold space for the personal, the very human, even in -- maybe especially in --...