CHRISTOPHER “KIT” MCILROY
Author | Writing Coach
About Me
Writing engages the whole person, and it is open to us all. That is the simple, underlying philosophy of all my work, with all my audiences and clients, from Head Start children through accomplished professionals. Through that engagement and openness, I believe that writing and reading make us larger people.
Review of ‘All My Relations’
“McIlroy, winner of the Flannery O’Connor Award for Fiction, offers unflinching and original portrayals of human weakness, solitude, and survival in the rural Southwest. In these stories, imperfect characters leading battered lives are as indomitable as the granite mountains and canyons that surround them…Tightly focused and tersely eloquent, McIlroy’s stories chronicle human inconstancy and end up affirming a tranquil wisdom.”
Review of ‘Here I am a Writer’
“Kit McIlroy’s book beautifully showcases the poetry and the lives of Native Americans who, as children, participated in ArtsReach, a creative writing project McIlroy founded in 1986…This is indeed a book that allows us to see the effect of writing on children, not through test scores, but through their writing-through their imaginations.”
Featured Story Collection
Click the Writing tab for a free download of my most recent short story collection, Iceland! Exclusively available on this site only.
Writing Belongs to All of Us
My fiction and non-fiction have appeared in various journals, periodicals, and anthologies, including Best American Short Stories. Along with publishing the award-winning story collection All My Relations and the non-fiction Here I Am a Writer, I have received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Arizona Commission on the Arts.
As a visiting teacher and presenter, I’ve treated every audience as a writing community, whether in a classroom, training session, family writing workshop, or public reading. Our purpose is to help each other become better writers.
As a reader of others’ work, I honed my skills teaching for the University of Arizona and the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers. My goal as an editor is to provide a receptive and inclusive approach to reading your manuscript, appreciating both traditional and experimental techniques. My aim is to help your work reach its highest potential. Above all, I will engage with your writing with the same intensity I would with my own.