Longtime Washington Blade contributor Kathi Wolfe, an award-winning journalist and nationally recognized poet, died June 22 after a short battle with cancer.
She was 71. Wolfe worked in the early 2000s as a Blade news reporter and later left to pursue her interests in poetry. She remained a regular freelance contributor for more than 20 years; her favorite subjects to cover were book reviews and profiling prominent figures who are queer and disabled.
Wolfe was honored last year by the D.C. chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists with a Dateline Award for her story, “Queer, Crip and Here,” a profile of Caitlin Hernandez, a queer writer and teacher who is blind.
Wolfe was also legally blind and her disability motivated her to use her platforms to highlight the important contributions of disabled LGBTQ people.