about
kathryn m. barber

Raised a Baptist preacher’s daughter in the mountains on the Tennessee/Virginia state-line, Kate’s writing centers largely around southern culture, country music, complicated families, small towns, and religion. She holds a master’s degree in writing words from the University of North Carolina Wilmington and a master’s in reading words from Mississippi State University. She has taught composition, creative writing, and literature at UNC Wilmington, Mississippi State University, and Belmont University.

A lover of literary magazines, she has held various positions on the mastheads of Ecotone, Southern Humanities Review, and the Jabberwock Review, and has interned for Lookout Books. Currently, she is the Assistant Editor for Press Pause Press. Her short story “Sorry About Your Bird” was featured in the New Voices section of The Masters Review and was a finalist and honorable mention in the James Hurst Prize for Fiction (2019) judged by Stephanie Powell Watts. Kate’s stories and essays have appeared in The Pinch, Blue Earth Review, Moon City Review, Door is a Jar, and elsewhere. Now, she is at work on a collection of stories about music and Nashville and three novels. She is happiest when listening to fiddles and Dolly Parton on the porch of a Smoky Mountains cabin.


MFA (fiction): University of North Carolina Wilmington, 2018
MA (literature/fiction writing): Mississippi State University, 2014
BA (literature/fiction writing): Carson-Newman University, 2012

 

Teaching positions