About Kathy
BIOGRAPHY
Kathy Nelson grew up near the southern Appalachian Mountains and has lived in Austin, Salt Lake City, central New Jersey, western North Carolina and (currently) northern Nevada. She has worked as an engineer, a teacher, and a chaplain. While poetry had been a thread through all her previous life, Kathy began to study and to write poetry seriously during her experience as a hospice chaplain and has felt both fed and ignited by the poetry of Larry Levis, Kathleen Graber, Natalie Diaz, Elizabeth Bishop and Ellen Bryant Voigt.
In 2019, Kathy was awarded the James Dickey Prize (Five Points: A Journal of Literature and Art). She is the author of the full-length collection, The Ledger of Mistakes (Terrapin Books, 2023), as well as two chapbooks: Cattails (Main Street Rag, 2013) and Whose Names Have Slipped Away (Finishing Line Press, 2017). Her poems have appeared in Asheville Poetry Review, Southern Poetry Review, Tar River Poetry, Valparaiso Poetry Review, New Ohio Review, Rogue Agent Journal and elsewhere. She holds an MFA from the Warren Wilson Program for Writers.
AWARDS
~The Ledger of Mistakes has been recognized with a 2024 ERIC HOFFER AWARD - Honorable Mention in Poetry. To read judge’s comments CLICK HERE.
~ In the fall of 2023 Kathy Nelson was named a 2024 NEVADA ARTS COUNCIL Literary Fellowship Grant recipient.
~ Kathy is honored to be the recipient of the 2019 JAMES DICKEY PRIZE FOR POETRY. This award is bestowed by the literary magazine Five Points published by Georgia State University. The annual award is for an outstanding group of poems by one poet. Kathy’s poems are published in the Vol. 20, no. 1 issue of Five Points. Previous winners include Kim Addonizio, Robert Wrigley, A.E. Stallings, Michael McFee, Anne Marie Macari, and Ann Townsend.
~ Kathy is also honored to have been nominated for the 2020 & 2022 PUSHCART PRIZE.
~ Kathy’s poetry was recognized with an Honorable Mention in the 2018 KAKALAK POETRY CONTEST.
PUBLICATIONS
Kathy’s poetry has appeared in The Cortland Review, Asheville Poetry Review, Tar River Poetry, Southern Poetry Review, Broad River Review, U.S. 1 Worksheets, The Paterson Literary Review and other print and online journals. Her work has been included in The Practicing Poet (Terrapin Books) and anthologized in It’s All Relative: Tales from the Tree (Stone Ivy Press).
Kathy is the author of two chapbooks:
Cattails (Main Street Rag, 2013)
Whose Names Have Slipped Away (Finishing Line Press, 2017)
A LEDGER OF MISTAKES
The award winning book of poems published by Terrapin Press. To learn more CLICK HERE.
ARTISTRY
Kathy lives in Carson City, Nevada. She takes delight in the fact that she lives twenty minutes from Lake Tahoe, where Jeffrey and Ponderosa pines stand tall along the intense blue water.
Kathy journals most mornings, and often accompanies her written entries with line drawing & watercolor sketches inspired by her surroundings. Kathy’s watercolor and oil paintings are an extension of this creative journey. All the drawn and painted imagery featured on this site is Kathy’s.
Kathy also collaborates with her husband, photographer Bruce Nelson, in the creation of images that combine words and visuals.