Katherine Schmidt

Katherine Schmidt (she/her) is a creative writer and poet currently living in Washington, D.C. She is the Editor in Chief and co-founder of the collaborative poetry journal, Spark to Flame.

Publications

• "What are we but mycelium, mud, and mistakes" (Gone Lawn)
• "Guns, Sex, Phones" (Rejection Letters)
• "Above all else" (ballast journal)
• "do you think this pigeon knows that it, too, is an animal?" (HAD)
• "Dust to Dust" (Puerto del Sol), print issue 60.1
• "REPORTE SÍSMICO 25/03/2022 04:23:03" co-authored with Natalie Wolf (I-70 Review), print, 2024
• "Hediondilla" (Lost Balloon)
• "At IHOP We Eat The Food of Champions" co-authored with Natalie Wolf (Right Hand Pointing)
• "Magazine City" (Okay Donkey)
• "Icarus Shouldn't Have Drowned" (Pithead Chapel)
• "Star Diner" (Bending Genres)
• "To Jessica Schwartz, From Your Designated Demon" co-authored with Natalie Wolf (Roi Fainéant Press)
• "The field the train runs through" (voidspace)
• "Quantum Entanglement" (Variant Lit)
• "when i think of jason bourne i think of christmas" (JAKE)
• "Time Doesn't Care" (Transients Mag)
• "Resurfacing" (Poetry Lab Shanghai)
• "rewind" co-authored with Candice Kelsey (Icebreakers Lit)
• "Note from 2125" (Cutbow Quarterly)*CLOSED
• "Space Potato" (JAKE)
• "That time I gave CPR to my ex's grandpa" (Full House Literary)
• "It's April and" (Roi Fainéant Press)
• "Just you, a crocodile" (Rejection Letters)
• "I hate the word liminal" (Anti-Heroin Chic)
• "the egg" (Bullshit Lit Anthology 2), print, 2023
• "Church in a metro car" (Thimble Literary Magazine)
• "St. Francis Monastery" co-authored with Natalie Wolf (Unbroken)
• "Ache" (3Elements Literary Review)
• "Summer with Dad 2002" (New Note Poetry)

Readings

• August 2025 - 804 Lit Salon, Washington, D.C.
• December 8, 2024 - The Potter's House, Washington, D.C. as a guest on nat raum's tour to promote their poetry book, "this book will not save you".

Nominations

• 2024 Best Microfiction thanks to Lost Balloon
• 2025 Best New Poets nomination for "Magazine City" thanks to Okay Donkey

Currently Thinking About

• Volume 5, No. 16: Queer Syntax is Infinite by Laura Sackton
• CJ the X videos and essays
• "The Clown Watches The Clown" by Sara S. Messenger in Apex
• "Why Don’t We Just Kill the Kid in the Omelas Hole" by Isabel J. Kim in Clarkesworld
• "Sticks" by George Saunders
• "Himalia" by Carrie Vaughn in Clarkesworld
• Collaboration as art as process as meaning-making

The Socials

Twitter: @ktontwitr [not active] and Bluesky: @ktonbsky.bsky.social