Karyna McGlynn

Poet Karyna McGlynn grew up in Austin, Texas, and earned an MFA at the University of Michigan and a PhD in literature and creative writing from the University of Houston. McGlynn is the author of three books of poetry: 50 Things Kate Bush Taught Me About the Multiverse (Sarabande, 2022); Hothouse (Sarabande, 2017); and I Have to Go Back to 1994 and Kill a Girl (Sarabande, 2009), which won the Kathryn A. Morton Prize. She is also the author of three chapbooks: The 9-Day Queen Gets Lost on Her Way to the Execution (2016), Alabama Steve (2014), and Scorpionica (2007). Her work has been featured in the anthology Best American Nonrequired Reading (2010).
 
McGlynn uses psychological ephemera, pop culture, and improvisational plots to investigate danger and human longing. “Part film noir, part horror flick, these innovative poems dwell in the cul-de-sac badlands where crimes and heinous misdeeds are recurring,” noted Karla Huston in Library Journal. “McGlynn … offers poems in alternating views while tangling reality, time, and space.” In an interview for SHARKFORUM, McGlynn noted the importance of temporality to her work: “The past is always present in my writing. … We are not purely products of our own time—we are a decoupage of memories, both individual and shared.”
 
A member of five former National Poetry Slam teams, McGlynn has served as the organizer of the Houston Indie Book Fest and as managing editor of Gulf Coast. McGlynn is the Director of Creative Writing at Interlochen Center for the Arts.