Kate  Rushin

Kate Rushin joined Connecticut College as Distinguished Visiting Poet in 2021 and was appointed Professor of English and Poet in Residence beginning in the 2022-23 academic year.

Rushin has taught:

• ENG 105: Introduction to Creative Writing
• ENG 123: Introduction to African American Literature
• ENG 240: Reading & Writing Poetry
• ENG 317: Black Women Writers
• ENG 340: Poetry Writing Workshop-Intermediate
• ENG 379: Black Poetics

Rushin is the author of The Black Back-Ups, a Lambda Book Award Finalist, and the widely anthologized work, “The Bridge Poem.” She has received fellowships from Brown University, The Cave Canem Foundation, The Massachusetts Artists Foundation, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, as well as a work scholarship from the Bread Loaf Writers Conference. Her work is included in African American Poetry: 250 Years of Struggle and Song, edited by Kevin Young, published by the Library of America, and is featured on the on-line companion website, “Lift Every Voice: Celebrating African American Poetry.”  Her contribution to the Witness Stones Old Lyme Poetry Project appears in the November 2021 issue of “Poetry Magazine.”

Kate Rushin’s work and perspectives on teaching are influenced by her experiences growing up in an historic African American community, teaching poetry at all levels, and being a member of the New Words Women’s Bookstore Collective in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  In addition to producing and hosting “The Women’s Talk Show,” on WRBB-Northeastern University, she helped produce radio programs for Boston Women’s Community Radio, and the International Women’s Day Radio broadcast at WMBR-MIT.

Previously, Rushin served as Visiting Writer, Director of the Center for African American Studies and Director of the Summer African American Literature Institute at Wesleyan University.

Kate Rushin believes that words really do matter, and, as Audre Lorde teaches us, “poetry is not a luxury.”