Kimberly Ann Priest
Author & Educator

Kimberly Ann Priest is a neurodivergent writer and the author of Slaughter the One Bird (Sundress Publications 2021), finalist for the American Best Book Awards, and the chapbooks The Optimist Shelters in Place (Small Harbor Press 2022), Parrot Flower (Glass Poetry Press, 2021), and still life (PANK 2020), with books forthcoming from Texas Review Press & Unsolicited Press. As a survivor of gendered violence and an active outdoorswoman, her writing and scholarly interests are deeply focused on gender-based trauma, disability, displacement, conservation, and ecology, and she has participated in initiatives to increase awareness concerning sexual assault, survivorship, and healing through nature and artistic expression. She has received residencies from Monson Arts, Firefly Farms, and Proximity Writer's House and served as an editorial intern for Sundress Publications and Black Earth Institute as well as an associate editor for six years with the Nimrod International Journal of Prose and Poetry. Winner of the 2019 Heartland Poetry Prize, her work has appeared in literary journals such as North Dakota Quarterly, Salamander, RHINO, Beloit Poetry Journal, and The Birmingham Poetry Review. Currently, an assistant professor of first-year writing at Michigan State University, Kimberly is a member of the Association of Writers and Publishers, Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance, and the National Association for Poetry Therapy. She is the poetry editor for West Trade Review and lives, with her husband, in Maine. Pronouns: she / her