Kathryn Savage’s Groundglass: An Essay (Coffee House Press), explores topics of environmental justice and links between pollution and public health. Groundglass was named a best read of the year by the Sydney Morning Herald, a Yale Review Favorite Cultural Artifact of 2022, and was showcased in Orion Magazine, Lit Hub, and selected by EcoLit Books as a Best Environmental Book of 2022.

Recipient of the Academy of American Poets James Wright Prize, her writing across forms has been supported by the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Jerome Foundation, Minnesota State Arts Board, Ucross Foundation, and Tulsa Artist Fellowship. Savage has studied creative writing at The New School, holds an MFA in fiction from Bennington College, and an MFA in poetry from the University of Minnesota.

Recent writing appears or is forthcoming in American Short Fiction, BOMB Magazine, Ecotone Magazine, Guernica, VQR, World Literature Today, and the anthology Rewilding: Poems for the Environment.

Currently she is an assistant professor of creative writing at The Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD). She is at work on a collection of short stories.

To learn more about Kathryn: kathrynsavage.com

Interview location: Minneapolis, MN

Kathryn's Books on the Bed:

Escapes by Joy Williams

The Dry Heart by Natalia Ginzburg

An Ideal Presence by Eduardo Berti

What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky by Lesley Nneka Arimah

Fixer by Edgar Kunz

Dear Memory by Victoria Chang

Second Stack:

Sing to It: Stories by Amy Hempel

Wonderlands by Charles Baxter

Matt's gifts for Kathryn:

A History of Half-Birds by Caroline Harper New

Return the Innocent Earth by Wilma Dykeman

Episode timeline:

0:00-5:29 — Intro

5:30-29:22 — Kathryn's story, history in Minneapolis, & Groundglass

29:23-1:59:47 — Kathryn's Books on the Bed & Second Stack