MEET KATE
writer . mom . bass player
I have been teaching creative writing for almost twenty years. Reading about other women’s lives and experiences has expanded my world. To be able to walk in someone else’s shoes, whether it’s for a moment or an hour or a few days, is an incredible gift, providing me with insight into the human experience.
It takes courage to write your truths, especially if it doesn’t seem as though anyone cares, as though anyone is listening. Let me tell you: your stories matter, I’m listening, and I’m here to help you find the heart of those truths, to get them down on the page, to craft them, and to send them out into the world. Together, we will change the world, one story at a time.
I’m the founder of Motherhood & Words®, a series of classes, workshops, readings and retreats to support women interested in writing about motherhood. I’m the author of Ready for Air: A Journey Through Premature Motherhood, winner of a MIPA Midwest Book Award, and Use Your Words: A Writing Guide for Mothers. And I’m the co-author of Silent Running: Our Family’s Journey to the Finish Line with Autism (Triumph Books, April 2015.)
Other writing has appeared in a number of magazines and journals, including Brevity, Literary Mama, Longreads, Los Angeles Review of Books, nytimes.com, Poets & Writers, River Teeth and Creative Nonfiction’s True Story.
I have an MFA in creative writing from the University of Minnesota, where I taught literature and creative writing. I currently teach online, in Ashland University’s Low-Residency MFA Program and at The Loft Literary Center and ModernWell.
- Fulbright Grant recipient
- MIPA Midwest Book Award
- Gesell Summer Fellowship at the Anderson Center ( Red Wing, Minnesota )
- University of Minnesota English Department Outstanding Teacher Award for Graduate Assistants
- 2008 and a 2014 MN State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant
- 2011 Sustainable Arts Foundation Grant
“Kate worked magic on my manuscript! She inserted prompts where I needed to write more story upstream to match what I had written later, asked for more character development than I thought possible, changed the tense, and, most importantly, taught me how to express my deepest feelings. My book is a very personal memoir, so that was the exact elixir it needed. Frosting on the cake is that Kate Hopper is the person everyone wants for a friend.”