Kelle Groom's memoir, I Wore the Ocean in the Shape of a Girl (Simon & Schuster) is a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection, New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice, a Library Journal Best Memoir, Oprah O Magazine selection, and Oxford American Editor's Pick. She is the author of three poetry collections: Five Kingdoms (Anhinga Press), Luckily (Anhinga Press), and Underwater City (University Press of Florida), and her work has appeared in Agni, The New Yorker, New York Times, Ploughshares, Poetry, and Best American Poetry. Groom is a 2014 National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellow in Prose. She is also the recipient of fellowships and awards from the James Merrill Writer-in-Residence Program, Black Mountain Institute, University of Nevada-Las Vegas, Library of Congress, Djerassi Resident Artists Program, Millay Colony for the Arts, Atlantic Center for the Arts, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, American Antiquarian Society, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and Ucross Foundation, as well as a State of Florida Division of Cultural Affairs grant, two Florida Book Awards, and a Barbara Deming Memorial Fund grant. She was recently Distinguished Writer-in-Residence at Sierra Nevada College, Lake Tahoe. Currently, she is on the faculty of the low-residency MFA Program at Sierra Nevada College and Summer Program Director at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. Former poetry editor of The Florida Review, she is now a contributing editor.

Website: www.KelleGroom.com

Twitter Username: @KelleGroom

Publications

• I Wore the Ocean in the Shape of a Girl , Simon & Schuster (June 2011)
• Five Kingdoms , Anhinga Press (2010)
• Luckily , Anhinga Press (2006)
• Underwater City , University Press of Florida (2004)

Awards

• NEA Literature Fellow in Prose(2014)

Employment

• MFA Faculty at Sierra Nevada College, Lake Tahoe (July 2012 - )
• Distinguished Writer-in-Residence / Assistant Professor of Humanities at Sierra Nevada College, Lake Tahoe (August 2012 - May 2013)
• Black Mountain Institute-Kluge Fellow at University of Nevada, Las Vegas/Library of Congress (September 2011 - May 2012)
• Grants and Communications Manager at Atlantic Center for the Arts (January 2006 - November 2010)
• Director of Grants Administration at Coalition for the Homeless of Central Florida (November 2002 - December 2005)
• Associate Director of Development at Orlando Opera Company (January 1999 - November 2001)
• Summer Program Director at Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown (February 2015 - )

Degrees

• Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from University of Central Florida (December 2008)

Genres of Interest

Fiction, Creative nonfiction, Poetry