About Catherine
I am fascinated by perception of landscape
and how it shapes our movements in the world.
My prose, poetry, and songs arise at the intersection
between ecology and art.
and how it shapes our movements in the world.
My prose, poetry, and songs arise at the intersection
between ecology and art.
Catherine Young is a disabled writer and performing artist whose work is infused with a keen sense of place. She is author of the poetry collection Geosmin (Scent of Soil). Her writing has been published in the anthologies The Driftless Reader, Contours, Permanent Vacation II: Eighteen Writers on Work and Life in Our National Parks, Imagination and Place: Cartography and is forthcoming in Essential Voices. Her work appears internationally in Reliquiae and The Island Review and in Ascent, Minding Nature, Flyway, Fourth River, About Place, Hippocampus, Literary Mama, Midwest Review, Kestrel, and Wisconsin Review, among others. Her poetry has been published as broadsides for Fermentation Fest Farm Art / Dtour Passwords and Madison Metro Buslines and most recently in About Place, Tiny Seed, Cold Mountain Review, Passager, and River Heron. Her children's fiction, nonfiction, and poetry appeared in Cricket. Her writing was as semi-finalist for Hippocampus’ Remember in November contest, and her poetry received an honorable mention for the Hal Prize. In 2020,Catherine’s full-length memoir Black Diamonds, Blue Flames was long listed for the Graywolf Nonfiction Prize and is forthcoming from Torrey House Press.
I was born in the largest coal mining valley in the world at the time of its collapse in the 1950s. Drawn by the writings of Aldo Leopold, the landscape of Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House in the Big Woods and the birthplace of the Environmental Movement, I eventually moved to Wisconsin for my education.
Catherine's prose and poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best American Essays, and she is the recipient of a Terry Foundation Edenfred Fellowship and a residency at Write On Door County. She worked as a national park ranger, farmer, educator, and mother before completing her MFA in Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia. She holds degrees in Environmental Science, Physical Geography, and Education from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She worked for International Crane Foundation in prairie restoration and woodland ecology, as naturalist for Aldo Leopold Head Nature Center and naturalist-writer for Wisconsin State Parks. Catherine is poetry editor of Midwest Review, leads writing workshops, and records the weekly Landward podcast for WDRT.
With her family, Catherine raises her food on a sustainable organic farm in Wisconsin's Driftless Area. Her home is located on a trout stream, one branch of the giant water tree called the Mississippi River.
In everything that I do, in every object I welcome into my life, I consider three questions in the stream give-and-take:
Where does it come from? Where is it going? What is my part?
My work as a naturalist, educator, and folk artist has been filled with preserving and sharing story. Like a bountiful harvest of farm produce, stories preserve sustenance. Publishing, performing story, and crafting songs is like lifting the preserves from larder shelves and opening them up for a feast.
I invite you to partake!
Listen to recordings of published writings through the Podcasts page
and sample writings linked through the Prose & Poetry page.
*Contact Catherine and request to be put on the mailing list for events:
catherineyoungwriter@gmail.com