Katherine's profile

October 6, 2016:  My two books of poetry are Island and Living Room (prose poems).  My third book, My CIA, is a lyric essay/memoir.  My CIA was named a top ten book of 2012 by the Review of Art, Literature, Philosophy and Humanities and added to their ongoing list of great nonfiction reads.  It won a Baker Artist Award; was showcased on Maryland Public Television’s, An Artworks Special; and was featured through an art installation co-produced by Maryland Institute College of Art’s MFA in Curatorial Practice in early December 2013 in Baltimore.  I have published widely in literary journals and magazines such as American Poetry Review.  I have an MFA in Poetry and an MA in English/Creative Writing/Poetry.  In 2011 and 2014, I won Maryland Individual Artist Awards (state grants in creative writing in poetry). I have been awarded finalist/semi-finalist status in the Emerging Writer Fellowship Competition, The Writer's Center, Maryland; the Joaquin Miller Cabin Reading Series, Washington, DC; the Autumn House Press Open Competition; The "Discovery"/The Nation Poetry Contest; the Poet Lore Narrative Poetry Competition; The Chester H. Jones Foundation National Poetry Competition; The Maryland Poetry Review Poetry Contest; and the fellowship competition, Summer Literary Seminars in Lithuania and Kenya, 2013.  I teach Creative Writing at Stevenson University and University of Maryland University College.  Finally, recently I won the Gabehart Prize in (Creative) Nonfiction for an excerpt from my manuscript, RUN SCREAM UNBURY SAVE; was named one of three finalists for the Tony Quagliano International Poetry Award; was awarded a Hoffer Legacy (Creative) Nonfiction Award for My CIA; was made a finalist for my manuscript, Muse Annie, a chapbook of hybrid poetry; and (incredibly good news) won the Autumn House Press Open Book Award in Creative Nonfiction for my literary memoir manuscript, RUN SCREAM UNBURY SAVE, which means they’ll publish it and it will be out this spring!

Here is what has been said about RUN SCREAM UNBURY SAVE:
 
To “READ” (and yes I am using all that graphic punctuation with intent!) this extraordinary memoir, Run Scream Unbury Save, I had to employ a ZIP Extractor to extract (from the brain-like folds of the CLOUD) this gorgeously convoluted and original origamied textual text of the not so transparent text of this bookish book.  That is to say, embedded in this message is the message that this mean medium is the message (a blast from the past!) and what a divine mess of a message it is.
 
Too often, it seems to me, we construct our books as if they are mere transcriptions of oral tales, desiring to invoke a waking dream in the reader while disguising the scaffolding of the narrative delivery device (the book itself), suppressing, consciously, the self-conscious consideration of self-consciousness.  McCord, in Run Scream Unbury Save, reignites the curious rotary engine of curiosity, the spirographic folding back, that ululation, as a great storyteller confronting the unique high-techery of the book.  Believe me, this book cannot, ever, be made into a movie or binge TV series or streamed video.  No, it is a book’s BOOK.  A map more detailed than the thing it represents.  It confronts the BOOK and does what only the BOOK can do and does it with goddamn gumption and infinite grace.
 
Katherine McCord’s life here is an open book book, and the fine instrument of that opening is the story of that story.
 --Michael Martone, Judge, Autumn House Press Creative Nonfiction Contest
Author of Michael Martone and Memoranda


Katherine McCord has changed the terms of engagement from labyrinth to chambered nautilus. She explores -- with searing insight and humility and sensitive intelligence -- the movement through terrible forms of solitude into the blessed difficulties of summoning her beloved ones, past and present, for a new dance. Madness and aloneness and despair and shame echo through RUN, SCREAM, UNBURY, SAVE, but the whole effect is the unforgettable release of the human cry freed to roam the world.
--Kevin McIlvoy, 57 Octaves Below Middle C (Four Way Books), The Complete History of New Mexico (Graywolf), Hyssop (TriQuarterly), and other books.
 
 
Sculpted brilliantly. Impacts like "Howl" and "Caged Bird." A word journey worthy of Scheherazade. In RUN SCREAM UNBURY SAVE, McCord's early life through CIA stations and intrigue from Nepal and undisclosed places finally lands back in Langley USA country. Coming of age details show the sisterhood bonding that survives alcohol and abuse, blended gloriously with marriage, daughters, professorship, a suicide, and everyday life felt from the inside out. Like a hologram seen in the right light, the words and images from these pages reflect wit and humor, understanding, soft genius, and large creativity. Together they add to your life, change your life and make you want to know more about life as this gifted storyteller tells it.
~ Dianne Lancaster, Emotional Wellness Coach & Author
            Anger and the Indigo Child, Destiny and Purpose of the Authentic Self  


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