ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kelly Watt is a Canadian writer and poet. She has published two books. Her first, the gothic novel Mad Dog, was published in the U.S. with Hamilton Stone Editions, Inc. (2019), and by Doubleday Canada (2001). It was voted a Globe and Mail notable book in 2001.
Kelly's short fiction has been longlisted twice for the prestigious CBC Short Story Contest (2015/2018); and the Gloria Vanderbilt Short Fiction Contest (2012). Her creative non-fiction has also been longlisted for the CBC Nonfiction Contest (2019), highlighted for the best of travel writing for 2019 at Nowhere Magazine, and won an Honourable Mention at Grit Lit, Hamilton's Readers and Writers' Festival, Memoir Contest (2019). Her astrologically-inspired poetry chapbook, The Weeping Degree was a finalist in the San Miguel de Allende's Poetry Mesa and Wild Rising Press chapbook contest, January 2023. Her poems and stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Last Stanza Press, 2022, Hamilton Stone Review, U.S., Nowhere Magazine, The Broken Plate, DAP: The Diverse Arts Project, Dandelion, SOL: English Writing in Mexico and The Malahat Review; and included in the anthologies Doorways and Thresholds, Best Canadian Stories and She Writes.
Watt
Watt has a second life as a spiritual seeker. She spent a month at a retreat in a Buddhist Monastery in Nepal at 18 years old and spent years studying Tibetan Buddhism in various centers around the world for years afterwards. She is a certified Five Tibetan Yoga’s instructor, EFT International Tapping Instructor, and completed her meditation teacher training at Naturality School (formerly Samagra Path) in Hamilton, Ontario (2015). She loves going on pilgrimages and has done three to date. In 2008 she walked the Camino de Santiago to get sober. In 2012, she did the second largest pilgrimage in Mexico, to San Juan de Los Lagos, Mexico with a group of women healers. And in 2015, she returned to India to do a third pilgrimage. She occasionally leads volunteer meditation walks on The Bruce Trail in Dundas, Ontario.
Awards & Recognitions
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- 2023 Finalist for the SMA Wild Rising Press and Poetry Mesa Chapbook Contest
- 2019 Longlisted for the CBC Nonfiction prize.
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2019 Kelly won an Honourable Mention at gritLIT, Hamilton's Readers and Writers Festival. Read her story here!
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2018 Kelly was longlisted for the prestigious CBC Short Story Prize. Her story Fall of the High Flyers, was in the top 27 out of two thousand submissions.
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2015 She was longlisted for the prestigious CBC Short Story prize.
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2012 Her short fiction was long-listed in the Gloria Vanderbilt Short Fiction Contest.
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1991 Kelly won first prize in Dandelion Magazine's contest.