Kathleen McCormick

Kathleen Zamboni McCormick is a writer who lives in Purchase, New York with her husband and their demanding cat. She is the mother of one boy, step-mother of two, and loves all her guys whose roles in the arts deeply inspire her. She grew up in Cambridge, MA, in a tense Irish/Italian Catholic family whose contradictions were both hilarious (in retrospect) and frightening and were raw material for Dodging Satan.

Dodging Satan has most recently been shortlisted for an International Rubery Book Award and it won a gold medal from Foreword Review in Humor. Other awards include:

• 2020 Independent Press Award, Humor & Wit.

• 2019 Topshelf Indie Book Award, First Place in First Novels Under 60,000 words

• 2019 Topshelf Indie Book Cover Award

• 2018 Readers’ Favorites Book Award, Bronze Medal in Religious Themed Fiction

• 2018 International Book Award, Finalist in Humor

• 2017 NYC Big Book Award, Silver Medal in Humor

• 2017 Illumination Book Awards—Catholic Books: Bronze Medal

• 2017 ELit Bronze Medal in Humor

• 2016 Colorado Independent Publishers Association, EVVY Awards: Gold Medal for Religion & Spirituality; Silver Medal for Humor

The book has been in the top 10 of its Kindle category in July and December of 2016.

Reviewers are finding Dodging Satan to be both humorous and poignant.

• Josephine Hendin (Heart Breakers: Women and Violence in Contemporary Culture and Literature) says that Dodging Satan "outdoes Mary McCarthy's Memories of a Catholic Girlhood in its wit, intelligence and irresistible mixture of realism and charm. It is simply a joy to read."

• Edvige Giunta (Writing with an Accent and co-editor of Personal Effects) writes: "There's magic in this world—and while we are charmed by its glow, we are also repeatedly unsettled by the darkness behind that glow. We follow Bridget with trepidation, captivated by her vulnerability and her fierceness."

• Michael P. Carroll (Catholic Cults and Devotions and many other studies of popular Catholicism) comments that "this playful but gripping coming of age tale draws upon a mishmash of Catholic popular culture to create outrageous narratives that helps the narrator to make sense of it all."

Kathy's a professor of Literature at SUNY Purchase, and says that "writing and teaching writing are deep rhythms in my life. I am in awe at how writing enables my students, and me, to grow, to make sense of the paths we have chosen, will choose, or those we just find ourselves on." Kathy loves the revision process--whether she's revising her own work or helping her students embrace the process themselves. "I have always loved to write, but had expected my work to be confined to the academic," despite the fact that for years, friends and family had admired her story-telling abilities.

But her move to Purchase College in 2000 took her in a new direction. "Purchase College's unique arts-saturated atmosphere changed my life," she states, "and encouraged me to creatively explore my Irish-Italian Catholic childhood" which rapidly became the subject of over twenty personal essays and stories. "Part of the real thrill of writing," she smiles, "whether it's creative or academic--is that you can never predict exactly where your characters, or your argument, will end up. Of course you plan, but in the process of writing, everything gets a lot more interesting than you imagined....Writing is what Lou Reed calls the 'beginning of a great adventure.'"

In addition to her writing and teaching, she loves going to the theater, frequently spends time England and the other Cambridge and is interested in all things British from Shakespeare to the Guardian to the Cambridge Evening News to her favorite contemporary writer, Ali Smith, who also lives in Cambridge. She finds pleasure in arts & crafts, sewing, knitting, crewel work, and embroidery. She claims that "if I weren't a writer and an academic, I'd have become a weaver. The pleasure I take in fabrics is something that certainly comes through in Dodging Satan. The weaver in me I hope is also evident in the ways in which I write digressively and then work every detail back into the main fabric of the story."

Please contact Kathy on her webpage KathleenZMcCormick.com if you are interested in having her do a reading at your school or be part of a bookclub discussion.