Kathy Flann's stories and essays have appeared in The Gettysburg Review, Shenandoah, The North American Review, The Michigan Quarterly Review, and other publications. A short story collection, Smoky Ordinary, won the Serena McDonald Kennedy Award and was published by Snake Nation Press. A collection of short stories, Get a Grip, was recipient of the George Garrett Fiction Prize, and was published by Texas Review Press. She is also the author of Write On: Secrets to Crafting Better Stories. For five years, Flann taught creative writing at the University of Cumbria in England, where she created mini-courses for the BBC's Get Writing website and served on the board of the National Association of Writers in Education. She's been a fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Sozopol Fiction Seminars in Bulgaria, and Le Moulin a Nef in France. She has received grants from the Maryland Arts Council and the Baltimore Office of Promotion & the Arts, and also received a Baker Artist Award for the Literary Arts. She loves dogs.