by Niki Acton '16

Poet Casey Patrick '11 is in the midst of a residency with Hub City, a literary arts community in South Carolina. Patrick, who majored in creative writing at Knox, will spend nine months focusing on her manuscript and engaging in community service.

Based in Spartanburg, South Carolina, the Hub City Writers Project began in 1995, when a trio of South Carolina writers began a mission to preserve a sense of place in their community. The organization has since flourished, publishing more than 500 writers in 66 books. Hub City has also given away more than $20,000 in scholarships to emerging writers.

Patrick will serve as writer-in-residence from September 2014 to May 2015, as she works to complete a poetry manuscript that examines our fascination with female historical figures, tackling subjects such as Amelia Earhart, Zelda Fitzgerald, Marie Curie, and Clara Bow. She will also complete a community service project, which she hopes will be an opportunity to work with young children to help them celebrate their neighborhood through writing.

At Knox, Patrick juggled a number of responsibilities, including a position as an editor for Catch, the award-winning literary journal. "Knox taught me an incredible amount about the writing life and all the possibilities it contains," said Patrick. "I actually started grad school feeling over-prepared; that's how well Knox educates its students."

After Knox, Patrick earned her MFA in Poetry from Eastern Washington University. She is the copy editor for Sundog Lit, an online journal, and served as Poetry Editor for the Eastern Washington University literary journal Willow Springs. For the last year, she has been the publishing assistant at Milkweed Editions, an independent publishing house in Minneapolis.

"I think a lot of people would be nervous to give up their first full-time job to spend a year holed up in a house by themselves writing poetry," said Patrick. "But being at Knox with so many driven and inspiring people, you see first-hand that people are happiest when they're following their passions, and I felt that I had to apply to this residency and see it through."