About Kate Salley Palmer & Warbranch Press
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Kate Salley Palmer is an award-winning nationally syndicated political cartoonist, author and illustrator. Simon and Schuster published her first two picture books, A Gracious Plenty and How Many Feet in the Bed (illustrated). Kate has also illustrated books for Boyds Mills Press (Octopus Hug, Bear Hug and Upstairs) and Albert Whitman (Night of the Five Aunties).
Kate and her husband, Jim Palmer, a retired Clemson Professor, started Warbranch Press, Inc. in 1998. Their first book was a soft cover edition of A Gracious Plenty, a family story about Kate’s great aunt May Zeigler. Then, the Palmers published The Pink House – a story about the Salley family’s annual trip to Edisto Beach, SC. Kate’s next book, The Little Chairs, was published in 1999. It is based on true events concerning Kate’s mother and father. The story, popular with kids and adults, gets enthusiastic and spontaneous applause when she reads it at schools. Kate also presented the book to good response in a session at the South Carolina NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) convention in Columbia in 2016. In 2005, Kate began to write non-fiction books about the state’s role in the American Revolution, such as Palmetto – Symbol of Courage and Francis Marion and the Legend of the Swamp Fox. Those books were followed by Almost Invisible – Black Patriots and First South Carolinians – a book about South Carolina’s Native People. James Palmer, Kate and Jim’s son, illustrated both the Francis Marion and First South Carolinians books. In early Fall, 2013, Jim and Kate’s daughter, Salley Ouellette, conducted a crowd-funding Kickstarter project to support the publishing of one of Kate’s poems, entitled, I Know Santa Very Well, about Santa’s unconditional love. The book was successfully funded and published before Christmas in 2013. In 2014, Kate wrote and illustrated a picture book about a Holstein cow and its young 4-H Club owner’s adventures with the family pet, including dairy shows at the county and state fairs. The story of the book was based on Jim’s real 4-H dairy project cow, Hostie, and thus the title, Hostie. In 2015 Kate did a coloring book about the 2016 Presidential Campaign, entitled 2016 Race for the White House – A Grownup Coloring Book, complete with caricatures and brief biographies of all the candidates of the national political parties. For the 2020 Presidential Campaign, Warbranch Press published a coloring book, 2020 Race for the White House - A Grownup Coloring Book. In 2017, Kate wrote and James illustrated a book for USC Press entitled, The Lady of Cofitachequi – A Native American Folktale, about a Native American Princess who lived with her people near present-day Camden, South Carolina. The Lady was loved by her people, but a Spanish Explorer, Hernando de Soto, came through her territory in 1540 looking for gold and silver. Kate wrote the story through the voice of a river otter. James’s beautiful illustrations make Kate’s story come alive. Where did the Lady of Cofitachequi go and would Otter and people of the town ever see her again? This book was published by USC Press in late summer, 2019. Orders can be made by going to the USC Press website. 
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Kate Salley Palmer
Kate Salley Palmer signing books at a school visit.
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The "Kids" - James and Salley
Salley P. Ouellette
Salley Ouellette lives in Pendleton, SC with her husband, Dave, and daughter, Emma. Salley was an All-State volleyball player in high school and played collegiate volleyball at Furman, where she graduated with a BS in Biology. She coached college volleyball for seven years, and then went to graduate school at Clemson where she obtained a Master’s in School Counseling. After working for several years in Student Affairs (Health Education) at Clemson, she spent three years as a guidance counselor at a Middle School and Elementary School in Anderson County.
Currently, Salley is employed as Program Coordinator at the Clemson’s School of Business Corporate Learning Center in downtown Greenville, SC. Salley can be reached at: salley.ouellette@gmail.com 
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James Palmer
James H. Palmer, Jr. – illustrator of Francis Marion and the Legend of the Swamp Fox, First South Carolinians (both from Warbranch Press) and The Lady of Cofitachequi: A South Carolina Native American Folktale (USC Press)
James Palmer is a graphic artist living in Clemson. He is father to Leo (18) in Atlanta. Palmer is a Clemson graduate with a major in English and minor in Drama. His primary job responsibilities are with The Graphic Cow, an apparel company based in Greenville. He also occasionally does freelance art for other entities, including SC ETV. In 2005 James wrote, illustrated and co-produced a documentary for SC ETV entitled, Chasing the Swamp Fox. This documentary about SC native, Francis Marion, contains interviews with noted state historians and has been aired many times on SC ETV’s Carolina Stories. He next illustrated a documentary entitled The Forgotten Founder, about Charles Pinckney, one of SC’s signers and a principal author of the US Constitution. In 2019, James illustrated a documentary about the English planters who in 1670 came from the island English colony, Barbados, and established plantations near the coast around current Charleston. All of these documentaries about SC history are available in DVD format form ETV’s on-line store: www.etvstore.org. In Chasing the Swamp Fox, James’s meticulous research gave his computer artwork an authenticity that made Marion and his men come alive in moss-draped shadows and fiery battle. His illustrations in Francis Marion and the Legend of the Swamp Fox have made the book a best-seller for Warbranch Press. In First South Carolinians, his illustrations of the Native Americans are well-researched and illustrate how they lived before European contact. Both books are widely used as resources for teachers at schools in South Carolina. For 15 consecutive years, the Marion (SC) Chamber of Commerce has purchased a Marion book for every 3rd grade student in Marion County. James can be reached at jpalmer@mindspring.com |