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About Katie
Katie Rose Guest Pryal, J.D., Ph.D., is an award-winning author, keynote speaker, and professor of law and creative writing. Her writing and speaking work focus on mental health and disability.
She is the author of Life of the Mind Interrupted: Essays on Mental Health and Disability in Higher Education (2017), a #1 Amazon bestseller; The Freelance Academic: Transform Your Creative Life and Career (2019), winner of a Gold INDIE award; and Even If You’re Broken: Essays on Sexual Assault and #MeToo (2019), winner of a Gold IPPY award. Her forthcoming book, Darkness Interrupted: Reckoning with Mental Health in Higher Education, will be published by the University Press of Kansas in 2023.
She is also the author of the Hollywood Lights Series of novels, published by Blue Crow Books. The series includes Entanglement, Chasing Chaos, Fallout Girl, and Take Your Charming Somewhere Else, which won the 2022 IPPY Gold Medal in Romance. Like all of Katie’s writing, the series centers mental health issues—in addition to romance, star-crossed lovers, sexy woodworkers, and movie stars.
Her short pieces have appeared in Catapult, Quartz, Women in Higher Education, Dame Magazine, The Toast, and The Chronicle of Higher Education, and she’s been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
An avid equestrian and tennis player, she manages to fit her sporting life around her full-time writing and the parenting of her two children (with the help of a very understanding spouse). She lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
Visit Katie’s website and blog, where you can read stories about her life, at katieroseguestpryal.com. Subscribe to her letter on Substack at pryalnews.com.
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Katie’s Titles
Katie’s Awards and Recognition
- TAKE YOUR CHARMING SOMEWHERE ELSE won the 2022 IPPY Gold Medal in the Romance category. (An IPPY is an Independent Publisher Book Award for small press titles.)
- “The Holes We Live With,” essay in FULL GROWN PEOPLE, nominated for a Pushcart Prize, December 2021.
- EVEN IF YOU’RE BROKEN selected by RAINN as a featured title on their book list to learn about sexual violence, October 2021.
- LIFE OF THE MIND INTERRUPTED and THE FREELANCE ACADEMIC were named to THE PROFESSOR IS IN Top 12 Books About Academia in 2021.
- THE FREELANCE ACADEMIC was named to the Recommended Reading list by FROM PHD TO LIFE in 2021.
- EVEN IF YOU’RE BROKEN: ESSAYS ON SEXUAL ASSAULT AND #METOO won a Gold 2020 Independent Publisher Book Award—an “IPPY”—for small press titles
- THE FREELANCE ACADEMIC: TRANSFORM YOUR CREATIVE LIFE AND CAREER won a GOLD 2019 INDIES Award (for small press titles).
- BOOKRIOT picked LIFE OF THE MIND INTERRUPTED: ESSAYS ON MENTAL HEALTH AND DISABILITY IN HIGHER EDUCATION as one of the top 5 Books to Help You Understand Higher Education in 2019.
- Essay in CATAPULT Magazine, “The World Doesn’t Bend for Disabled Kids (or Disabled Parents),” was the most-read article in the magazine of 2018.
- CHAPEL HILL MAGAZINE picked FALLOUT GIRL: A NOVEL as one of its top 5 Books From Local Authors to Take to the Beach in 2018.
- Essay in MOTHERWELL Magazine, “With New Life Comes a Fear of Death,” was named one of the top-10 most popular articles in the magazine of 2017.
