Katie Farris

Katie Farris (born August 10, 1983) is an American poet, fiction writer, translator, academic and editor.

Life and career[]

Katie Farris's work appears in The Nation,^[1] McSweeneys, Granta, The Believer, Poetry, Poetry London, American Poetry Review, Poetry. She is the author of BOYSGIRLS (Tupelo Press) which has been lauded as “truly innovative” (Prague Post ^[2]), “a tour de force” (Robert Coover ^[3]), and “a book with gigantic scope. At some points it reads like the book of Genesis; at others, like a dream-turned-nightmare. From the opening lines the author grabs you by the throat.” (Louisville Courier-Journal ^[4]). She has also published several chapbooks, including A NET TO CATCH MY BODY IN ITS WEAVING, which won 2021 Chad Walsh Chapbook Prize given annually by Beloit Poetry Journal.^[5] Farris is also the co-translator of several books including Gossip and Metaphysics: Russian Modernist Poems and Prose (Tupelo). Her work and translations had also been featured in platforms such as MoMA, praised in The New Yorker,^[6] and included into anthologies from Penguin, Graywolf, and Harper Collins.

She is the recipient of Anne Halley Poetry Prize from The Massachusetts Review,^[7] Flash Fairy Tale Prize from the Fairy Tale Review,^[8] and Orison Award in Fiction ^[9] (judged by Justin Torres).

Berlin-based press Five Hundred Places published her Thirteen Intimacies.^[10] Several of her books have been published in Russian and Ukrainian. Next year, Valparaiso Ediciones ^[11] in Mexico City will publish a Spanish language edition of Farris’ work, niñosniñas, translated by the acclaimed Mexican writer Pura López Colomé.

Her translation books include Polina Barskova's This Lamentable City (Tupelo Press), Guy Jean's If I Were Born in Prague (Argos Books) and Mourning Ploughs the Winter (Marick Press), as well as forthcoming A Country Where Everyone Name is Fear by Boris and Ludmila Khersonsky (Lost Horse Press). Farris won the DJS Translation Award from Poetry East/West for her co-translations in New Cathay: Contemporary Chinese Poetry, 1990-2012 (Tupelo Press ^[12])

In 2019–2020, Farris held Irving Bacheller Chair in Creative Writing at Rollins College. She has also taught at UC Berkeley and Brown University and for many years in the MFA Program at San Diego State University^[13] where she won an Innovation in Teaching Award.^[14] She has also served as the core faculty member at New England College's Low Residency MFA Program, where she co-founded graduate program in fiction. She is currently the Associate Professor of Creative Writing at Georgia Institute of Technology.

Published works[]

Books and Chapbooks

• "BOYSGIRLS" (Tupelo Press, 2018, earlier edition was published by Marick Press), author ISBN 978-1-934851-30-2
• "A NET TO CATCH MY BODY IN ITS WEAVING" (Winner of the Chad Walsh Chapbook Prize, Beloit Poetry Journal, 2021), author ISBN 978-1-7320411-3-4

Translations

• If I Were Born In Prague: Poems of Guy Jean (Argos Books, New Hampshire, 2011), co-translator
• This Lamentable City: Poems of Polina Baskova (Tupelo Press, Vermont 2010), co-translator ISBN 978-1-932195-83-5
• Traveling Musicians: Selected Poems of Polina Barskova (Yunost Publishers, Moscow, 2006), co-translator

Editor

• "Gossip and Metaphysics: Prose by Russian Modernists Poets" (Tupelo Press, 2015), co-editor

Critical reception[]

In The Literary Review, Juliana Converse says: "Rather than the sort of tales in which we can point to a specific moral lesson, the stories in boysgirls offer more possibilities than conclusions. And while we sometimes leave these beings on the cusp of metamorphosis, Farris’ word selection and lines like incantations reverberate throughout memory and dream. Fans of Matthea Harvey's hybrid mermaids will embrace these characters, and readers of Angela Carter will bask in these mythic inventions/inversions that point to gender identity and sexual agency. With its immersive magic and unforgettable imagery, life surges through this tiny, gorgeous book that rewards and re-rewards with each tumble down its rabbit hole."^[15]

In American Book Review, Mary McMyne says: "Farris's language is delicious, maddening and mythic, dreamlike, sarcastic, witty...tales come alive as myths, as dreams.^[16]

In Bookslut, Micah McCrary says: "Farris has crafted, molded, sculpted stories that will enter our consciousness as effortlessly as tales of Mother Goose and the Brothers Grimm, because we already know them. And if Barthes had believed that myth "has the pretension of transcending itself into a factual system," Farris's stories have come with no pretense. They are humble. Fluid. Introductory in a manner that professes only innocence—and with this innocence comes belief. And belief, we know, is all that's required for myth, modern or not, to grab us tightly and carry us up into the sun."^[17]

In Poetry Flash, Robert Lipton writes: "BOYSGIRLS by Katie Farris, a collection of modern myths or extended prose poems, asks questions about the minutiae of enchantment and its attendant quotidian; the small grows large, the strong, lame and the defenestrated literally take wing. She has constructed a chimerical work, more poetry than prose, a disordered mythology, a book of secrets almost told."^[18]

In , Debrah Lechner states: "BOYSGIRLS is a dizzying series of colorful gem-like stories, demon-and-fairy tales that present fabulous monsters that we’ve known existed all along. In fact, any of us might be one."^[19]

Interviews[]

• Interview with Katie Farris in Kenyon Review^[20]
• Interview with Katie Farris in Massachusetts Review^[21]
• Interview with Katie Farris in ^[22]
• Interview with Katie Farris in ^[23]

Selected Poems, Prose and Translations Online[]

• "In the Event of my Death" by Katie Farris in The Nation^[24]
• "What Would Root" by Katie Farris in Poetry^[25]
• "When you Walk Over the Earth" by Katie Farris in Ecotone Magazine^[26]
• "Wild Honey Is a Smell of Freedom" by Anna Akhmatova, co-translated by Katie Farris in Indiana Review ^[27]
• "The Devil's Face" by Katie Farris in ^[28]

References[]

External links[]

• Marick Press
• Tupelo Press | A nonprofit small press fostering the literary arts since 1999
• Katie Farris' Faculty Page at Georgia Tech
• Katie Farris' website