Katharina Gericke was born in Kyritz, Brandenburg in 1966. After an internship at the Hans-Otto Theater in Potsdam, she pursued studies in Creative Writing for the Stage at the Berlin University of the Arts. In 1996, she took first place from the Authors’ Foundation in Frankfurt am Main for her play Maienschlager.
She wrote several more plays in the years following, earning the Kleist Award for Young Playwrights in 1998 for Winterkönig. Her play Vom Fluss was created in 2000, commissioned by the Schaubühne Berlin, and premiered in September 2005 at the Staatsschauspiel Dresden.
In 2006, Gericke wrote Mont Klamott, commissioned by the federal state of Saxony, which deals with the peaceful revolutions of 1989 and features rock music from the band Silly. She worked for several years as house dramatist for the Lower Saxony State Theater in Wilhelmshaven, In 2011, she wrote Lenz – Fragmente, a radio drama directed by Jörg Jannings.
Gericke took part in the Bachmann Contest in Klagenfurt, Austria in 2014 and won the Ernst Willner Award for her short story Down Down Down to the Queen of Chinatown.
Katharina Gericke has a daughter and lives in Berlin. (2020)