Kathleen Balma

Poet

New Orleans, LA

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Author's Bio

Ms Balma is a public librarian. She has lived in several regions of the United States, Australia, and Spain. A grateful New Orleans transplant, she is the woman Mary Hatch might have been, if only Mary Hatch hadn't married George Bailey.

Education:

Indiana University MFA

Writers Retreats:

Bread Loaf Environmental Writers’ Conference

Sewanee Writers’ Conference

Publications & Prizes

Anthologies:

Best New Poets (Samovar Press, 2020)

Atlanta Review 25th Anniversary Anthology (Atlanta Review, 2019)

Maple Leaf Rag 40th Anniversary Anthology (Portals Press, 2019)

Silence: University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor's International Poetry Prize (International Poetry Studies Institute (IPSI), University of Canberra, 2019)

Maple Leaf Rag VI: An Anthology of Poetic Writings from New Orleans (Portals Press, 2017)

Montreal International Prize: Global Poetry Anthology (Vehicule Press, 2015)

Pushcart Prize XXXVII (Pushcart Press, 2013)

Book:

FROM YOUR HOSTESS AT THE T&A MUSEUM (Black Spring Press Group, 2022)

Chapbook:

GALLIMAUFRY & FARRAGO (Finishing Line Press, 2018)

Journals:

2River View

American Journal of Poetry

Atlanta Review

Cardinal Points

Contemporary Verse 2

Crab Orchard Review

Drunken Boat

Good Foot

Hotel Amerika

New Haven Review

PMS: poemmemoirstory

Prelude

Prick of the Spindle

Puerto del Sol

Spillway

The Hopkins Review

Xavier Review

ZYZZYVA

Prizes won:

Katherine Bakeless Nason Scholarship, Bread Loaf Environmental Writers' Conference (2020/2021); William Alexander II & Lisa Percy Fellowship, Rivendell Writers' Colony (2017); Tennessee Williams Scholarship, Sewanee Writers Conference (2016); Pushcart Prize XXXVII (2013); International Publication Award (Atlanta Review, 2010); Fulbright US Student Grant (Spain, 2007-2008); Roy Battenhouse Memorial Award, National Society of Arts and Letters (Bloomington, Indiana chapter, 2004); Editor's Choice, James Wright Poetry Contest (Mid-American Review, 2003).

Watch

The Lockdown Series - Episode 4

Personal Favorites

Favorite authors:

Richard Adams, Maya Angelou, Aristophanes, John Ashbery, Margaret Atwood, Jane Austen, James Baldwin, Julian Barnes, J.M. Barrie, Eric Carle, Raymond Carver, Miguel de Cervantes, Kate Chopin, Lucille Clifton, J.M. Coetzee, Wilkie Collins, Roald Dahl, Daniel Defoe, Guy de Maupassant, Charles Dickens, Emily Dickinson, James Dickey, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Alexandre Dumas, Russell Edson, George Eliot, Euripides, Gustave Flaubert, Adam Foulds, Anne Frank, Nick Flynn, Kenneth Grahame, Barry Gifford, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Louise Glück, Albert Goldbarth, William Golding, William Goldman, Lev Grossman, Xiaolu Guo, Mark Haddon, Charles Boardman Hawes, Lorraine Hansberry, Terrance Hayes, Lillian Hellman, Hesiod, Tony Hoagland, Alice Hoffman, Miroslav Holub, Homer, Marie Howe, Richard Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Shirley Jackson, Henry James, Denis Johnson, Franz Kafka, Brigit Pageen Kelley, A.S. King, Maxine Hong Kingston, Galway Kinnell, Rudyard Kipling, Etheridge Knight, John Knowles, Yusef Komunyakaa, Munro Leaf, Stanisław Lem, Madeleine L'Engle, Tracy Letts, Primo Levi, C.S. Lewis, Jack London, Lucretius, Herman Melville, A.A. Milne, John Milton, Molière, Vladimir Nabokov, Maggie Nelson, E. Nesbit, Tim O'Brien, Flannery O'Connor, Frank O'Hara, Sharon Olds, George Orwell, Kenneth Patchen, Ann Patchett, Nicanor Parra, Lucia Perillo, Carl Phillips, Luigi Pirandello, Beatrix Potter, Marcel Proust, Howard Pyle, Arthur Ransome, Anne Rice, Rainer Maria Rilke, Rumi, Cynthia Rylant, J.D. Salinger, George Saunders, Sir Walter Scott, David Sedaris, Maurice Sendak, Marjane Satrapi, William Shakespeare, Mary Shelley, Leslie Marmon Silko, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Robert Louis Stevenson, Dr. Seuss, Gail Sheehy, Muriel Spark, Wisława Szymborska, Shaun Tan, James Tate, Mildred D. Taylor, Amor Towles, Lao Tsu, Marina Tsvetaeva, César Vallejo, Jules Verne, Voltaire, Alice Walker, Sarah Waters, E.B. White, T.H. White, Mo Willems, Tennessee Williams, Tobias Wolff

More Information

Gives readings:

Yes

Travels for readings:

Yes

Identifies as:

LGBTQ

Prefers to work with:

Adults, At Risk Youth, Naturalists/Environmentalists, Schools, Seniors, Teachers, Teenagers, Veterans

Fluent in:

English, Spanish

Born in:

Evansville, IN

Indiana

Raised in:

Harrisburg, IL

Illinois

Please note: All information in the Directory is provided by the listed writers or their representatives.

Last update: Dec 01, 2021