About

After many years as an English professor in Georgetown, Kentucky, Kristin Czarnecki made some changes and is now Gallery Coordinator at the Rockport Art Association & Museum in Rockport, Massachusetts. If you’re ever in the area, please visit this wonderful, storied institution and enjoy the art throughout its five galleries.

Kristin is also the author of The First Kristin: The Story of a Naming (Main Street Rag, 2020), a memoir about the experience of being named after a deceased sibling.

Her creative nonfiction, poetry, and blog posts have appeared in The Porch Magazine, The Smart Set, Peatsmoke: A Literary Journal, The Neglected Books Page, Clementine Unbound, Virginia Woolf Miscellany, International Virginia Woolf Society Blog, WordMothers, and Replacement Child Forum. She has also published literary criticism in Woolf Studies Annual, Journal of Feminist Scholarship, Journal of Modern Literature, the CEA Critic, College Literature, and Journal of Beckett Studies as well as in edited volumes.

She holds a master’s degree from Northwestern University and a Ph.D. from the University of Cincinnati and was an English professor for many years. From 2015-2020, she served as president of the International Virginia Woolf Society.

~ A bit more about me ~

I’m ecstatic to be the new Gallery Coordinator for the Rockport Art Association & Museum in Rockport, Massachusetts. Given my lifelong love of art, museums, Rockport, and the sea, this is without a doubt the mother of all dream jobs.

Of course, I will always remain an avid reader and writer. As an English professor, I enjoyed writing essays on my favorite authors, including Virginia Woolf, Jean Rhys, Louise Erdrich, and Barbara Pym. I also wrote a series of comparative essays on Woolf and Native women writers that have been lauded for opening up an important new field of Woolf studies.

I am also an independent contractor with Dissertation Editor and a consultant/writing coach for Amazing Journey College Counseling.

In recent years, I’ve turned toward hybrid writing that combines memoir/personal experience with literary criticism and research. Of those working in this genre, I love Katharine Smyth, Helen Macdonald, and Rachel Cohen.

I’m also enthralled by graphic narratives, particularly memoir and biography, and any work that combines word and image in creative, evocative ways. I count Kelcey Ervick, Maira Kalman, Nora Krug, Tom Hart, Alison Bechdel, Isabel Greenberg, Glynnis Fawkes, and Roz Chast among my favorite writers/artists in the genre.

In July 2021, I taught Introduction to Memoir for WRITESHARE. This workshop met once a week on Zoom to explore how thoughts, memories, impressions, and experiences may be woven together to create a compelling memoir. We focused on craft, purpose, and the development of ideas along with instructor feedback, peer critique, and short readings from published memoirs.