Kirie Pedersen Bio

Kirie is a writer, editor, and educator. Her writing appears in Cleaver, Mslexia, New World Writing,  Caper Journal, Wisconsin Review, Eleven Eleven, Eclipse, RiverSedge, Utne Reader, SevenDays, The View from Here, Regeneration (Rodale Press), Avatar Review, Northwest People, Chaffey Review, Teachers and Writers, American Motorcyclist, Folly, A Gourmet Notebook, Teachers and Writers, Rkvry Literary Quarterly, Blue Stem,  Laurel Review (Greentower Press), Burrow Press Review, Glossolalia, Avatar Review, Quiddity International Journal and Public Radio Program, South Jersey Underground, Burrow Press, Foliate Oak, Juked, Pithead Chapel, Apocrypha & Abstractions, Superstition Review, Hackwriters Magazine, The Great American Literary Magazine, Agave Review, Eclectica, Ginosko Literary Journal, New Plains Review, END/PAIN, Lunch Ticket, Weber Journal Cease, Cows, Mount Hope, Kaleidoscope,  Emrys Journal, Magnolia Review, Artist Unleashed, Sou’wester, Under the Sun, Noctua Review, Still Point Arts Quarterly, Hunger Mountain, Manifest-Station, PANK, and elsewhere. Stories and essays include nominations for Million Writers Award, Best American Essays, and Pushcart Prize. “Dark Time” also received the Magnolia Review Ink Award, and “Getting a Life – Coming of Age with Killers” was selected as a Notable Essay in Best American Essays 2018, edited by Hilton Als and Robert Atwan.

Kirie has taught creative writing and literature for gifted and talented inner city students, elders, and enlisted men and women and their children. Washington State commissioned and published her textbooks Writing Handbook for Teachers and Tutors, in Spanish and English, and Teaching Creative Writing Using Native American Songs and Myths. 

Kirie holds her M.A. in fiction writing and literature from Western Washington University, where she studied with Annie Dillard, Eugene K. Garber, and Kelly Cherry.

Contact Kirie: kirie@kiriepedersen.com

Excerpt from HalfKorean.com interview with Mia Crowe

When I was growing up, one of the people who influenced me a lot was this woman named Kirie Pedersen. I was in an accelerated program in school called GIFTED AND TALENTED where kids from different schools were bussed to classes once a week to learn at a more accelerated rate. The teacher’s assistant was Kirie and she was this bohemian type woman who read us poetry, taught us Spanish and told us about her experiences traveling in Mexico, and encouraged me to do creative writing assignments and stretch my imagination. She was the best! She was not like the other adults I had met- she was hip and cool and talked to me like I was an adult. Even the way she spelled her name was cool and different! So I thought that if I could volunteer my time to these teenagers at CHILDREN OF THE NIGHT, and not preach to them or tell them how to live but just SHOW them who I am and how I live, I may inspire somebody to follow whatever dream they might have-to be a nurse, a painter, or whatever. I followed my heart against the odds and I thought if they saw that a girl like me could do it- they could do what they want too.