Kathryn Kysar

Kathryn Kysar holds a BA in English and anthropology from Hamline University and an MFA in creative writing from Wichita State University.

She is the author of Pretend the World (Holy Cow Press, 2011) and Dark Lake (Loonfeather Press, 2002), as well as the editor of Riding Shotgun: Women Write About Their Mothers (Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2008).

Kysar is the 2025 winner of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs’ (AWP) George Garrett Award for Outstanding Service to Literature. An English professor at Anoka-Ramsey Community College, she lives in Saint Paul near Bdote, the merging of the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers, on the unceded homeland of the Dakota.