Kelly McMasters

Kelly McMasters is an essayist, professor, mother, and former bookshop owner. She is the author of the Zibby Book Club pick The Leaving Season: A Memoir (WW Norton) and co-editor of the ABA national bestseller Wanting: Women Writing About Desire (Catapult). Her first book, Welcome to Shirley: A Memoir from an Atomic Town, an Orion Book Award nominee and one of Oprah’s top 5 summer memoirs, is the basis for the documentary film ‘The Atomic States of America,’ a 2012 Sundance selection. Her essays, reviews, and articles have appeared in The American Scholar, The Atlantic, The New York Times, Oprah Daily, The Paris Review Daily, River Teeth: A Journal of Narrative Nonfiction, and Romper, among others. She is currently an Associate Professor of English and Director of Publishing Studies at Hofstra University in NY. Find more here: kellymcmasters.com