Kathryn Davis is an

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

novelist. She is a recipient of a

Lannan Literary Award The Lannan Literary Awards are a series of awards and literary fellowships given out in various fields by the Lannan Foundation. Established in 1989, the awards are meant "to honor both established and emerging writers whose work is of exceptional ...

Life

Davis has taught at

Skidmore College Skidmore College is a private liberal arts college in Saratoga Springs, New York. Approximately 2,650 students are enrolled at Skidmore pursuing a Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science degree in one of more than 60 areas of study. History Sk ...

, and is now senior fiction writer in the Writing Program in Arts & Sciences at

Washington University in St. Louis Washington University in St. Louis (WashU or WUSTL) is a private research university with its main campus in St. Louis County, and Clayton, Missouri. Founded in 1853, the university is named after George Washington. Washington University is r ...

. Davis lives in

Montpelier, Vermont Montpelier () is the capital city of the U.S. state of Vermont and the seat of Washington County. The site of Vermont's state government, it is the least populous state capital in the United States. As of the 2020 census, the population w ...

, with her husband, the novelist and essayist

Eric Zencey Eric Zencey (1953–July 1, 2019) was an American author, and lecturer at the University of Vermont in Burlington, Vermont and Washington University in St. Louis. Life and work Zencey's Ph.D. dissertation, "Entropy as Root Metaphor," published a ...

. The couple has one daughter, Daphne, who is a graduate student at Syracuse University.

Awards

She is a recipient of the Janet Heidiger Kafka Prize, the Morton Dauwen Zabel Award from the

American Academy of Arts and Letters The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 300-member honor society whose goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, music, and art. Its fixed number membership is elected for lifetime appointments. Its headqu ...

1999 File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shootin ...

, a

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from ...

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

,Kathryn Davis
Houghton Mifflin, accessed December 16, 2006 and a

Lannan Literary Award for Fiction The Lannan Literary Awards are a series of awards and literary fellowships given out in various fields by the Lannan Foundation. Established in 1989, the awards are meant "to honor both established and emerging writers whose work is of exceptional ...

in 2006.

Reception

Kathryn Davis' work has been met with mostly positive reviews by critics. ''The Thin Place'' was lauded by ''

Christian Science Monitor Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι� ...

'' as "impressively creative." ''

New York Times Book Review ''The New York Times Book Review'' (''NYTBR'') is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times'' in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely rea ...

'' called it "divinely inspired . . . if at times a little aimless." ''

San Francisco Chronicle The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and M. H. de Young, Michael H. de ...

'' said "Davis' particular talent is her ability to juggle Big Ideas and the minutiae of daily life in an engaging, unpretentious way." ''

The Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the ''Voice'' began as a platform for the crea ...

'' said Davis' writing is "ripe with evocative prose that always manages to undercut itself neatly." ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'' reviewed ''The Thin Place'' and called it "sly and playful, but also serious about exposing the spiritual lining of everyday phenomena." Davis' first memoir, ''Aurelia, Aurélia,'' was met with positive reviews. ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...

'' said Davis' ability to "sidestep reality has allowed her to successfully transcend the conventional let-me-tell-you style of memoir." ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' said her memoir "mimics the atemporal quality of the episodes that give meaning to life." ''

Chicago Review of Books The ''Chicago Review of Books'' is an online literary publication of StoryStudio Chicago which reviews recent books covering diverse genres, presses, voices, and media. The magazine was started in 2016 and Adam Morgan is the founding editor-in-c ...

'' said her memoir teaches an important lesson: "it is only through our remarkable apparatus of association that we will find meaning in life."

Novels

* * ''The Girl Who Trod on a Loaf.'' Knopf. 1993; Little, Brown. 2003. * ''

Hell In religion and folklore, hell is a location in the afterlife in which evil souls are subjected to punitive suffering, most often through torture, as eternal punishment after death. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hell ...

.'' Ecco Press. 1998; Little, Brown. 2003. * * * ''The Thin Place.'' Little, Brown and Company. 2006. ; Little, Brown. 2007. * *''Silk Road''. Graywolf Press. 2019. *''Aurelia, Aurélia.'' Graywolf Press. 2022.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Davis, Kathryn 20th-century American novelists Living people 21st-century American novelists Skidmore College faculty Washington University in St. Louis faculty Novelists from Vermont American women novelists 20th-century American women writers 21st-century American women writers Novelists from Missouri Novelists from New York (state) 1946 births