KC TROMMER www.kctrommer.com | 646-220-1286 | kctrommer@gmail.com
EDUCATION 2007 1998 1996
MFA in Poetry, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan Colby Fellowship Thesis: The Hello Girls, Poems, Laura Kasischke and Marie Howe, Advisors BA in English Literature, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia Presidential Scholar, Hope Scholarship Recipient, Honors University College Cork, Cork, Ireland, Study Abroad
TEACHING INTERESTS Poetry and Prosody, Lyric Essay, Editing and Publishing, Feminist Literature, Ekphrasis, Spoken Word, Visual Arts, Media and Cultural Studies, Contemporary Literature, Contemporary Art, Social Justice
BOOK-LENGTH WORKS
The Question Under the Question - Work in progress We Call Them Beautiful (Diode Editions, 2019) Winner Diode Editions 2018 Book Prize Finalist 2020 First Horizon Finalist, Eric Hoffer Awards; 2018 Beverly Prize and 2017 Sexton Prize from Eyewear Publishing; 2017; BOAAT Poetry Prize (Dean Young, judge); 2017 Autumn House Poetry Prize; (Kimoko Hahn, judge), 2017 Shelterbelt Poetry Prize (Ada Limón, judge); Vassar Miller Prize (2017, Rosanna Warren, judge; 2016, AE Stallings, judge; 2015, Geoffrey Brock, judge; 2011, Lisa Russ Spaar, judge; 2010, J.D. McClatchy, judge); 2014 Kore Press Open Reading; and 2013 Philip Levine Poetry Book Prize (Philip Levine, judge) The Hasp Tongue (dancing girl press, 2014), chapbook
TEACHING EXPERIENCE Catapult Poetry Instructor An Introduction to Poetry (2 courses)
Poets House Poetry Instructor You Are Here: Poems of Place, October 2019 NYU Gallatin Guest Instructor WRTNG-UG1560, The Art and Craft of Poetry, Scott Hightower, 2019 University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School Adjunct Writing Program Faculty, 2018–2019 WH 201: Business Communication (2 sections) Bard High School Early College Queens Creative Writing Instructor, 2008-2009 Writing & Thinking Workshops (2 sections) Creative Writing (1 section) The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor Graduate Instructor, 2005–2007 ENG 125: Freshman Composition (2 sections) ENG 223: Introduction to Creative Writing (1 section)
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AWARDS, HONORS, & RESIDENCIES
Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Governors Island COVID-19 Response Residency Program, Artist-in-Residence, 2021 The Resort LIC Writer-in-Residence, 2021 Brooklyn Art Song Society “Three Rides,” a song cycle by Herschel Garfein with poems from KC Trommer, world premiere at BASS 2019, Brooklyn Historical Society, Marnie Breckenridge (soprano), Dave Eggar (cello) Queens Council on the Arts New Work Grant Acadia Cycle, 2020 Arts Access Grant QUEENSBOUND, 2020 New Work Grant QUEENSBOUND, 2018 Pushcart Prize Nomination “Fear Not, Mary,” 2019 2015 Fugue Poetry Prize “Fear Not, Mary,” selected by Kevin Prufer Finalist, Queens Poet Laureate, 2015 Table 4 Writers Foundation Grant “The Wild Dogs” (short story), 2013 Academy of American Poets Prize “The Hasp Tongue,” 2007 Farrar Playwriting Award “Lessons in Higher English;” 2006 Meader Family Poetry Award “Learn by Going,” 2006 Prague Summer Program, 2004 Vermont Studio Center Residency, Johnson, Vermont, 2002
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
Full list available upon request Agni, “The Cyclone,” 2006, first publication The Antioch Review, “Mica,” 2007 Blackbird, “Black Ice” and “Virtue,” 2011 The Common, “The Couple,” 2020; “Off the Roosie” and “7 to 46th/Bliss,” 2019 Fugue, “Fear Not, Mary” 2016, Nominated for a 2016 Pushcart Prize LitHub, “First Map,” April 12, 2019 featured poem Minola Review, “Everything Falls Through Me,” 2018 Poetry Daily, “We Call Them Beautiful,” July 2, 2019 featured poem Prairie Schooner, “We Call Them Beautiful,” 2014 The Sycamore Review, “Mechanism of Pleasure,” 2009 Underwater New York, “Heel and Key,” 2017
NONFICTION
LitHub “Reading Across America: A Poetry Reading on an NYC Subway Car? On the International Express through the Immigrant Communities of Queens” VIDA Review “Report from the Field: Seeing Is Changing” LitHub “How Do We Fix the MFA?: Toward a New Model for Creative Writing Programs”
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ANTHOLOGIES
Who Will Speak for America? Edited by Stephanie Feldman and Nathaniel Popkin (Temple University Press, 2018) Resist Much Obey Little: Inaugural Poems to the Resistance Edited by Michael Boughn and Kent Johnson (Spuyten Duyvil Press, 2017) All We Can Hold: A Collection of Poetry on Motherhood Edited by Laura Stott (Sage Hill Press, 2016) The Crafty Poet II: A Portable Workshop Edited by Diane Lockwood (Terrapin Books, 2016) Oh, Baby! True Stories About Conception, Adoption, Surrogacy, Pregnancy, Labor, and Love; Edited by Lee Gutkind and Alice Bradley (Creative Nonfiction, 2015)
COLLABORATIONS 2020– 2017– 2015– 2015– 2010
PRESS 2021 2020 2019 2018
-With the Queens Museum, Commission for Onassis USA’s “Enter” Exhibition featuring QUEENSBOUND poets, “In the Here and Now” -With Chilean poet Elisa Montesinos, Spanish translation of We Call Them Beautiful QUEENSBOUND, founder – online audio project of Queens writers, funded with a New Work grant from the Queens Council on the Arts; 2019 Editorial Board: Abeer Y. Hoque, Jared Harel, and Joseph O. Legaspi With Herschel Garfein, composer – song cycle, “Three Rides;” Garfein is creating a full song cycle with work from We Call Them Beautiful With Emotive Fruition, performances of select poems -With NewLights Press broadside series -With artist Iviva Olenick
The Common Podcast, “The Couple” (forthcoming) Red Door Poetry Podcast – February 2021 Interview Urban Omnibus - “Poetry for the People in Public Spaces” NY1 - April 23, 2020 Segment “Poems help create virtual trip through Queens” Classical Review –June 8, 2019 “Art song trees grow in Brooklyn with three varied premieres” LitHub - “Reading Across America: A Poetry Reading On An NYC Subway Car? On The International Express Through The Immigrant Communities of Queens” The Queens Tribune - “Tracking the Borough’s Stories” by Thomas Moody
RECENT SERVICE
2021 Judge, Publishing Triangle Awards, Tom Gunn and Audre Lorde Prizes 2020Co-curator, with Spencer Reece, Red Door Series at St. Mark’s Church 2018Founder and Project Manager, QUEENSBOUND. A collaborative audio project of poems written about the borough by poets from the borough, QUEENSBOUND connects writers, showcases and helps develop Queens-based literature, and reflects the borough back to itself.
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BIO
Poet and essayist KC Trommer is the author of We Call Them Beautiful (Diode Editions, 2019) and the chapbook The Hasp Tongue (dancing girl press, 2014). She is the founder of the online collaborative audio project QUEENSBOUND. With Spencer Reece, she co-curates the weekly Red Door Series at St. Mark’s Church. A graduate of the MFA program at The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, KC has been the recipient of an Academy of American Poets Prize and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her poem “Fear Not, Mary” won the 2015 Fugue Poetry Prize, judged by Kevin Prufer. Her poems have appeared in AGNI, The Antioch Review, Blackbird, The Common, Diode, LitHub, The Sycamore Review, Poetry Daily, Prairie Schooner, Poetry East, Radio Lab, as well as in the anthologies Resist Much, Obey Little; All We Can Hold; Bared; and Who Will Speak for America? Her essays have appeared in VIDA Review, LitHub, and in the anthology Oh, Baby! True Stories About Conception, Adoption, Surrogacy, Pregnancy, Labor, and Love (Creative Nonfiction, 2015). KC is an artist-in-residence for the 2021 Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Governors Island COVID19 Response Residency Program. She has been awarded grants and fellowships from the Queens Council on the Arts, the Table 4 Writers Foundation, the Center for Book Arts, the Vermont Studio Center, the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, and the Prague Summer Program. The Grammy Award-winning composer Herschel Garfein created the song cycle “Three Rides” for soprano, cello, and piano from her work. The first of the songs, “The Cyclone,” had its world premiere in New York as a part of the 2017 Five Boroughs Music Festival’s Five Borough Song Book, Volume II. She has taught writing at Catapult, Poets House, the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; the University of Pennsylvania; and Bard High School Early College, Queens. KC has studied collage and painting at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, School for Visual Arts, and Parsons. Her collage work has been featured in group and solo shows in Ann Arbor and New York City. She is the Assistant Director of Communications at NYU Gallatin and lives in Jackson Heights, Queens, with her son.
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