Kathryn McCullough is an essayist, artist, and expat, who cofounded idiomART, a creative center in Cuenca, Ecuador, where she is now an artist-in-residence.

Trained as a Miltonist, she holds an MA in English literature and won the annual teaching award for her work in the University of Kentucky Writing Program. She was a poetry editor at Nimrod, received NEH funding to do research at the Center for Renaissance Studies (The Newberry Library), and earned a fellowship to the Shakespeare Institute, the academic arm of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre.

Kathryn believes that participating in the creative process is a redemptive act, that it allows artists to find meaning in happenstance and live with resonance and urgency. Because stories heal, she says, they reinforce everything from friendship to family. They build community and, in doing so, can transcend difference and broker reconciliation. 

Kathryn is writing a coming-of-age memoir. Since her father was a bookie for the mob and her mother an ardent evangelical, her story speaks to the current marriage of criminal and Christian cultures in the US. A narrative about family, it explores the epic potential for right and wrong in each of us, how anyone can grow and everyone can hope. Her memoir lays out the odds, which Kathryn insists, favor the future.