Today’s Spotlight falls on Kathryn “Kat” Wilder. Her story and writing are inspiring. We share an appreciation of Joy Harjo as the catalyst for our study in the MFA Low-Rez program. Kat as a friend, and me as a student exposed to Joy’s work. Here in her own words, is Kat’s story:
In 2017, I graduated from the Institute of American Indian Arts with an MFA in creative nonfiction. This followed a Master of Arts degree in creative writing from Northern Arizona University earned twenty-five years earlier. In the years in between, I edited two anthologies (Walking the Twilight: Women Writers of the Southwest and Walking the Twilight II) and co-authored two children’s books (Forbidden Talent with Redwing T. Nez and Sunpainters: Eclipse of the Navajo Sun with Baje Whitethorne (no byline in this one)). I also wrote unpublished novels, and found my strongest voice in the genre of creative nonfiction—my articles and essays have appeared in many periodicals and literary reviews, and essays have been listed as Notable in The Best American Essays.
During and since my time at IAIA, I was the 2016 winter Artist-in-Residence at Denali National Park and Preserve, a finalist for the 2016 and 2019 Ellen Meloy Fund Desert Writers Award, and 2018 finalist for the Waterston Desert Writing Prize. Two essays were finalists for the Crab Orchard Review’s Rafael Torch Literary Nonfiction Award in 2016, and additional publications include the following:
• “Withdrawal” in Torrey House Press’s “That Thing with Feathers: Hope and Literature in the Time of Pandemic” (
https://www.torreyhouse.org/single-post/2020/04/22/That-Thing-with-Feathers-Hope-and-Literature-in-a-Time-of-Pandemic);
• “Sex on Slickrock” in New Millennium Writings Musepaper (
https://musepaper.org/2019/sex-on-slickrock-by-kathryn-wilder/);
• “The Weight of It” in Contra Viento’s “Open Range” (
https://contravientojournal.org/the-weight-of-it/);
• “Getting Ready” in Deserts: The First Five Years of the Waterston Desert Writing Prize.
• “Grounded” in High Desert Journal (
https://www.highdesertjournal.com/copy-of-28-10);
• “October” in River Teeth‘s “Beautiful Things” (
https://www.riverteethjournal.com/blog/2019/02/18/october;
• “Fubar” in The Southwest Anthology: The Best of the Writing Programs, Texas A&M University Press.
• “Geology of My Body” and “Into the Dread” in the 2017 IAIA Student Anthology.
• “An Outsider Inside Denali National Park and Preserve,” National Park Service (
https://www.nps.gov/dena/getinvolved/air-wilder.htm); and
• “Where hope, science and mustangs meet” in High Country News’s “Writers on the Range” (
http://www.hcn.org/articles/pzp-where-hope-science-and-mustangs-meet).
The best writing news is that Desert Chrome: Water, a Woman, and Wild Horses in the West, which evolved from my IAIA thesis, will be published by Torrey House Press in March of 2021 (!). The tale of a woman lost in grief who finds her way out by following mustangs, Desert Chrome is based on personal backstory and the mustangs that share a fence with me at my home in Disappointment Valley, southwestern Colorado.
I learned of IAIA’s MFA program through Joy Harjo in 2015. I immediately applied to the creative nonfiction portion with the hopeful intention of completing the manuscript under the guidance of IAIA’s stellar faculty, which at the time included Linda Hogan, one of my favorite authors ever—then and now. I was lucky to have Linda as a mentor, as well as Chip Livingston and Lidia Yuknavitch (Lidia for a year—wow!), and also to have workshops with Elissa Washuta, Melissa Febos, and Pam Houston in addition to Lidia. Fresh material written for Chip and from Lidia’s workshop have places in the book, all of the workshopped pieces are chapters in Desert Chrome, and six of the above-mentioned publications are part of Desert Chrome.
Clearly, my writing and I have benefitted in myriad ways from my investment in IAIA and the low-rez MFA program’s investment in me. Not the least of these benefits is my lasting friendship with fellow alum Ina Leonard (whose piece in Orion can be found here:
https://orionmagazine.org/2020/04/shore-leave/), and heartfelt exchanges with George Cramer, Elissa Washuta, and Melissa Febos, which continue to sustain me in these challenging times.
In addition to writing, with my elder son, I run a ranch in Disappointment Valley and Dolores, Colorado, raise Criollo cattle, and sell grass-fed-and-finished beef at local farmers’ markets and restaurants. The ranch consists of about 19,000 acres of private, BLM, and USFS lands, and maybe it keeps us running more than we run it. Some weeks I hardly write at all. I leave at daylight and get home after dark, and while all I want to do is read and write, sleep overcomes. Today is the first time I’ve been home long enough to write several consecutive paragraphs. This will change next month when we move the cows up to the high country (9,000 feet), where grass and water and aspens abound. I envision writing in dToday’s Spotlight falls on Kathryn “Kat” Wilder. Her story and writing are inspiring. We share an appreciation of Joy Harjo as the catalyst for our study in the MFA Low-Rez program. Kat as a friend, and me as a student exposed to Joy’s work. Here in her own words, is Kat’s story:
In 2017, I graduated from the Institute of American Indian Arts with an MFA in creative nonfiction. This followed a Master of Arts degree in creative writing from Northern Arizona University earned twenty-five years earlier. In the years in between, I edited two anthologies (Walking the Twilight: Women Writers of the Southwest and Walking the Twilight II) and co-authored two children’s books (Forbidden Talent with Redwing T. Nez and Sunpainters: Eclipse of the Navajo Sun with Baje Whitethorne (no byline in this one)). I also wrote unpublished novels, and found my strongest voice in the genre of creative nonfiction—my articles and essays have appeared in many periodicals and literary reviews, and essays have been listed as Notable in The Best American Essays.
During and since my time at IAIA, I was the 2016 winter Artist-in-Residence at Denali National Park and Preserve, a finalist for the 2016 and 2019 Ellen Meloy Fund Desert Writers Award, and 2018 finalist for the Waterston Desert Writing Prize. Two essays were finalists for the Crab Orchard Review’s Rafael Torch Literary Nonfiction Award in 2016, and additional publications include the following:
• “Withdrawal” in Torrey House Press’s “That Thing with Feathers: Hope and Literature in the Time of Pandemic” (
https://www.torreyhouse.org/single-post/2020/04/22/That-Thing-with-Feathers-Hope-and-Literature-in-a-Time-of-Pandemic);
• “Sex on Slickrock” in New Millennium Writings Musepaper (
https://musepaper.org/2019/sex-on-slickrock-by-kathryn-wilder/);
• “The Weight of It” in Contra Viento’s “Open Range” (
https://contravientojournal.org/the-weight-of-it/);
• “Getting Ready” in Deserts: The First Five Years of the Waterston Desert Writing Prize.
• “Grounded” in High Desert Journal (
https://www.highdesertjournal.com/copy-of-28-10);
• “October” in River Teeth‘s “Beautiful Things” (
https://www.riverteethjournal.com/blog/2019/02/18/october;
• “Fubar” in The Southwest Anthology: The Best of the Writing Programs, Texas A&M University Press.
• “Geology of My Body” and “Into the Dread” in the 2017 IAIA Student Anthology.
• “An Outsider Inside Denali National Park and Preserve,” National Park Service (
https://www.nps.gov/dena/getinvolved/air-wilder.htm); and
• “Where hope, science and mustangs meet” in High Country News’s “Writers on the Range” (
http://www.hcn.org/articles/pzp-where-hope-science-and-mustangs-meet).
The best writing news is that Desert Chrome: Water, a Woman, and Wild Horses in the West, which evolved from my IAIA thesis, will be published by Torrey House Press in March of 2021 (!). The tale of a woman lost in grief who finds her way out by following mustangs, Desert Chrome is based on personal backstory and the mustangs that share a fence with me at my home in Disappointment Valley, southwestern Colorado.
I learned of IAIA’s MFA program through Joy Harjo in 2015. I immediately applied to the creative nonfiction portion with the hopeful intention of completing the manuscript under the guidance of IAIA’s stellar faculty, which at the time included Linda Hogan, one of my favorite authors ever—then and now. I was lucky to have Linda as a mentor, as well as Chip Livingston and Lidia Yuknavitch (Lidia for a year—wow!), and also to have workshops with Elissa Washuta, Melissa Febos, and Pam Houston in addition to Lidia. Fresh material written for Chip and from Lidia’s workshop have places in the book, all of the workshopped pieces are chapters in Desert Chrome, and six of the above-mentioned publications are part of Desert Chrome.
Clearly, my writing and I have benefitted in myriad ways from my investment in IAIA and the low-rez MFA program’s investment in me. Not the least of these benefits is my lasting friendship with fellow alum Ina Leonard (whose piece in Orion can be found here:
https://orionmagazine.org/2020/04/shore-leave/), and heartfelt exchanges with George Cramer, Elissa Washuta, and Melissa Febos, which continue to sustain me in these challenging times.
In addition to writing, with my elder son, I run a ranch in Disappointment Valley and Dolores, Colorado, raise Criollo cattle, and sell grass-fed-and-finished beef at local farmers’ markets and restaurants. The ranch consists of about 19,000 acres of private, BLM, and USFS lands, and maybe it keeps us running more than we run it. Some weeks I hardly write at all. I leave at daylight and get home after dark, and while all I want to do is read and write, sleep overcomes. Today is the first time I’ve been home long enough to write several consecutive paragraphs. This will change next month when we move the cows up to the high country (9,000 feet), where grass and water and aspens abound. I envision writing in dappled sunlight to the sounds of the breeze in the aspen leaves, the many different birdcalls up there, and the water trickling from snow-ponds to nourish the open meadows.
Today, though, I have to force myself away from this writing-work to haul water for the cows still in Disappointment Valley, where a dry winter merged with a dry spring to make drought. There is too much to mourn these days—the loss of too many. The strife and tragedy on the nearby Navajo Nation and among Indigenous communities everywhere. The impacts of our sh*tty government under this uncaring “leader”—and so, despite physical and spiritual exhaustion, I will willingly turn my head to a calf bawling for its mother. Because that is one small crisis, I might be able to solve, riding out across the dry valley to find the corresponding cow. To bring one small family unit back together.
Kathryn Wilder
P.O. Box 479
Dolores, Colorado 81323
(808) 344-3554
[email protected]
www.wilderhorses.live
appled sunlight to the sounds of the breeze in the aspen leaves, the many different birdcalls up there, and the water trickling from snow-ponds to nourish the open meadows.
Today, though, I have to force myself away from this writing-work to haul water for the cows still in Disappointment Valley, where a dry winter merged with a dry spring to make drought. There is too much to mourn these days—the loss of too many. The strife and tragedy on the nearby Navajo Nation and among Indigenous communities everywhere. The impacts of our sh*tty government under this uncaring “leader”—and so, despite physical and spiritual exhaustion, I will willingly turn my head to a calf bawling for its mother. Because that is one small crisis, I might be able to solve, riding out across the dry valley to find the corresponding cow. To bring one small family unit back together.
Kathryn Wilder
P.O. Box 479
Dolores, Colorado 81323
(808) 344-3554
[email protected]
www.wilderhorses.live
