Kathryn Wilder

Creative Nonfiction Writer

Dolores, CO
Colorado US
Email: 
kat@katwilderwriter.com
Website: 
katwilderwriter.com

Author's Bio

Kathryn Wilder's award-winning memoir, Desert Chrome: Water, a Woman, and Wild Horses in the West, will be followed by a second book of creative nonfiction, The Last Cows: On Ranching, Wonder, and a Woman’s Heart, forthcoming from Bison Books in November 2025. With an MFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts, Wilder writes, cowboys, and lives among mustangs in southwestern Colorado. She won the 2025 Western Heritage Award for Outstanding Magazine Article.

Education: 
Institute of American Indian Arts MFA in Creative Writing MFA

Publications & Prizes

Anthologies:
What Wildness Is This: Women Write about the Southwest (University of Texas Press, 2007)
,
American Nature Writing 2000 (Oregon State University Press, 2000)
,
American Nature Writing 1999 (Oregon State University Press, 1999)
,
Walking the Twilight II (Northland Press, 1996)
,
Walking the Twilight: Women Writers of the Southwest (Northland Press, 1994)
Book:
Desert Chrome: Water, a Woman, and Wild Horses in the West (Torrey House Press, 2021)
Journals:
Deep Wild Journal
,
Fourth Genre
,
High Country News
,
High Desert Journal
,
Midway Journal
,
Missouri Review
,
River Teeth
,
Sierra
,
Southern Indiana Review
,
Terrain.org: A Journal of the Built & Natural Environments
Prizes won: 

2025 Western Heritage Award for Outstanding Magazine Article;

2023 Ellen Meloy Award for Desert Writers;

2022 Colorado Book Award, creative nonfiction;

2022 Silver Nautilus Book Award, memoir;

2022 National Indie Excellence Awards, regional nonfiction: West;

May Sarton Award finalist

 

Personal Favorites

Favorite authors: 
Ellen Meloy, Linda Hogan, David James Duncan, Joe Wilkins, Joy Harjo, Rebecca Lawton, Brian Doyle, Debra Magpie Earling
What I'm reading now: 
Sun House by David James Duncan

More Information

Gives readings: 
Yes
Travels for readings: 
Yes
Prefers to work with: 
At Risk Youth, Naturalists/Environmentalists, Seniors, Women
Fluent in: 
English
Born in: 
Berkeley, CA
California
Raised in: 
Bay Area, Kaua‘i, Maui, CA
California
Please note: All information in the Directory is provided by the listed writers or their representatives.
Last update: Apr 30, 2025