Forthcoming Work

Kaia’s essay, “There Is No Time For Mom Guilt,” previously published in Literary Hub, will be published in forthcoming anthology AMERICAN OCCUPATION, edited by Jonny Diamond and Su Hwang. Coming in 2027 through University of Minnesota Press.

Selected nonfiction

Lit Hub: “There Is No Time For Mom Guilt” February 6, 2026.

Superstition Review: “Ouija Board: What We Ask of the Dead” Winter 2022, Online.

The Champagne Room: “Frankenstein’s Mother” Spring, 2022, Print.

Coal Hill Review: An excerpt from The War Requiem Winter 2020, Online.

Brevity’s Nonfiction Blog: “On Loving People I’ve Never Met” February 2020, Online.

The Briar Cliff Review: “Heavy Blessings” Spring 2015, Print.

AWP Intro Journals Project nominee for the essay “The Tulip Bulb Eaters” Fall 2013. Nominated by Benjamin Percy.

Selected fiction

The Drum: “Next Life” Issue 74, Winter 2019. 

Watershed Review: “Encounters” Fall 2018, Online.

Barely South Review: “The Deluded” Fall 2018, Print and Online.

Pleiades: “Dead Woman’s Pass” Summer 2017, Print. Featured as a New Literary Discovery with Introduction by novelist Benjamin Percy.

AWARDs, Fellowships, REadings, and lectures

The War Requiem, Essay Press, 2020. Winner of the Essay Press/University of Washington at Bothell MFA in Creative Writing and Poetics Book Award. Finalist for a Minnesota Book Award in the Creative Nonfiction category.

Author Fellow, Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing, 2019.

Lecturer, Reading, and Q&A, St. Olaf Great Conversation Program Plenary Lecture, April 2023.

Lecturer, “Let’s Get Creative: NaNoWriMo & More” Youth and Teen Workshop, Minnesota Council for the Gifted and Talented, 2021.

Panelist, Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing, “Podcasts, Self-Publishing and Promotion,” 2021.

Panelist, Minnesota Book Award Finalists in Creative Nonfiction and Memoir, 2021.

Reading and Q&A at the University of  Washington at Bothell’s MFA Program, 2020.

Reading and Q&A with the Girl Scouts Press Corps, 2020.

Featured Speaker, Twin Cities Book Festival, 2020.

Reading and Q & A, Hollins University, 2020.

Reading and Q & A, Magers & Quinn Booksellers, 2020.

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