Kathleen Renk
The granddaughter of East European immigrants, my grandfather Dmitri from Ukraine, my grandmother Erzsébet from Slovakia, I was born and spent my young life in St. Louis, MO. I attended Catholic school for twelve years, including four-years in an all-girls Catholic high school. As an undergraduate, I majored in Religion and Philosophy and graduated with honors. Later, I earned a B.S. in Nursing (also earning honors) and practiced as a registered nurse for twelve years before I earned a doctorate in British and Postcolonial literature from the University of Iowa.
While studying for my doctorate, I also studied fiction writing with the Pulitzer-Prize winning author James Alan MacPherson. I taught at the university and college level for 30 years and most recently was a professor of English at Northern Illinois University, where I spent 14 years teaching British, postcolonial, Irish, and Women’s literature. My favorite writers include A.S. Byatt, Charlotte Bronté, George Eliot, Emma Donoghue, Sarah Waters, Peter Carey, Salman Rushie, Hilary Mantel, Peter Carey, Ian McEwan, J.M. Coetzee, and Ursula Le Guin.
My first historical fiction novel, Vindicated: A Novel of Mary Shelley (Cuidono Press) won the 2021 Story Circle Network’s May Sarton Award in Historical Fiction and was short-listed for the CIBA Goethe Award in Historical Fiction. I’ve also published short fiction, creative nonfiction, and personal and numerous critical essays.
I’m the mother of three grown children and the grandmother of eight. My husband of 46 years, our dogs Sonia, a white German Shepherd, Odie, a Sheltie puppy, and I live on the Front Range in Colorado. I enjoy hiking, playing guitar, fiddle, pickle ball, trivia, and volunteering in an Inter-Generational Writing program at Colorado University, Boulder.
The granddaughter of East European immigrants, my grandfather Dmitri from Ukraine, my grandmother Erzsébet from Slovakia, I was born and spent my young life in St. Louis, MO. I attended Catholic school for twelve years, including four-years in an all-girls Catholic high school. As an undergraduate, I majored in Religion and Philosophy and graduated with honors. Later, I earned a B.S. in Nursing (also earning honors) and practiced as a registered nurse for twelve years before I earned a doctorate in British and Postcolonial literature from the University of Iowa.
While studying for my doctorate, I also studied fiction writing with the Pulitzer-Prize winning author James Alan MacPherson. I taught at the university and college level for 30 years and most recently was a professor of English at Northern Illinois University, where I spent 14 years teaching British, postcolonial, Irish, and Women’s literature. My favorite writers include A.S. Byatt, Charlotte Bronté, George Eliot, Emma Donoghue, Sarah Waters, Peter Carey, Salman Rushie, Hilary Mantel, Peter Carey, Ian McEwan, J.M. Coetzee, and Ursula Le Guin.
My first historical fiction novel, Vindicated: A Novel of Mary Shelley (Cuidono Press) won the 2021 Story Circle Network’s May Sarton Award in Historical Fiction and was short-listed for the CIBA Goethe Award in Historical Fiction. I’ve also published short fiction, creative nonfiction, and personal and numerous critical essays.
I’m the mother of three grown children and the grandmother of eight. My husband of 46 years, our dogs Sonia, a white German Shepherd, Odie, a Sheltie puppy, and I live on the Front Range in Colorado. I enjoy hiking, playing guitar, fiddle, pickle ball, trivia, and volunteering in an Inter-Generational Writing program at Colorado University, Boulder.