Patricia Kirkpatrick received the first Lindquist & Vennum Poetry Prize for her book Odessa, selected by poet Peter Campion and published by Milkweed Editions in 2012. Odessa was awarded the 2013 Minnesota Book Award in Poetry. She is also the author of Century’s Road, poetry chapbooks, and books for young readers. Her work appears widely in journals, among them Prairie Schooner, Poetry, and Agni Online, and in anthologies, including Robert Bly in This World and She Walks in Beauty, edited by Caroline Kennedy. Her awards include grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Bush Foundation, the Jerome Foundation, the Minnesota State Arts Board, and the Loft- McKnight.

Her teaching experience extends over thirty years; she has taught graduate and undergraduate writing, literature, and children’s literature at Hamline University, Macalester College, the Loft, San Francisco State University, and elsewhere. She also has conducted writing workshops and residencies in such places as the Princeton Theological Seminary and various California and Minnesota school districts and libraries. As poetry editor for the literary magazine Water-Stone Review (2001-2012), she worked with many writers, including Jane Hirshfield, Li-Young Lee, Brenda Hillman, Eleanor Lerman, Louis Jenkins, Joyce Sutphen, Gary Soto, and Alberto Rios. She also solicited bilingual writing in indigenous languages, including Dakota and Ojibwe, for publication. In 2001 she curated papers of Robert Bly for an exhibit at the Loft Literary Center. Her interviews with American poets such as Adrienne Rich, Sharon Olds, W. S. Merwin, and Lucille Clifton have appeared widely.

Recent projects include curating and editing the Minnesota Center for the Book 2012 winter book, Lessons For Our Time, performing readings with the vocal ensemble CANTUS, and writing curricula for the Saint Paul Public Schools. Currently she works as a freelance editor and private teacher and is available to give readings of her work, lead workshops, and edit manuscripts.

Patricia grew up in Des Moines and received degrees from the University of Iowa and San Francisco State University. The mother of two adult children, she lives in Saint Paul.