Mary-Kim Arnold is the author of the poetry collection The Fish & The Dove (Noemi Press, 2020) and Litany for the Long Moment (Essay Press, 2018), an experimental memoir of her adoption from Korea. Litany for the Long Moment was awarded the 2016 Essay Press Open Book Prize, was a finalist for the 2018 Chautauqua Janus Prize, honored by the Asian Pacific American Librarians Association, featured in NPR’s Code Switch 2018 Book Guide, and named by Entropy Magazine as one of the Best Nonfiction Books of 2018.

In 2020, she received a Howard Foundation Fellowship for a multi-disciplinary work-in-progress, Artist Unknown, Korean, and in 2018, she received a MacColl Johnson Fellowship for her novel in progress, Nine Men’s Misery. Other publication highlights include Conjunctions, Hyperallergic, Poem-a-Day, The Georgia Review, The Rumpus, Tupelo Quarterly, and Manual, the magazine of the Rhode Island School of Design. Mary-Kim’s textile and installation work has been featured in group shows of the Art League of Rhode Island, the Jamestown Arts Center (RI) and the Upstream Gallery (NY).

Currently, Mary-Kim teaches in the Nonfiction Writing Program in the English Department at Brown University. Courses include: Introduction to Creative Nonfiction, Contemporary Asian American Writers, and Reframing Race in Art Writing. Prior to returning to teaching, Mary-Kim spent more than a decade working in and with arts and cultural nonprofit and philanthropic organizations. She was the inaugural Director of Evaluation and Learning, after serving as Grant Program Officer for the Arts & Culture at the Rhode Island Foundation, the state’s community foundation. She also led the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities, an independent nonprofit affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. She has served in Board leadership roles at the International Charter School, the Women’s Fund of Rhode Island, New Urban Arts, and Dirt Palace Public Projects. In 2021, she was appointed to the Board of the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts.

She holds a BA and MFA from Brown University and an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Mary-Kim lives in Pawtucket with her family.