“Poets with Kathy Mac’s impeccable technical skill are not too hard to find, but very few can touch her for emotional power, thematic range, gentle humour or quiet courage. As Robert Heinlein said of another writer, these poems should be served with a whisk broom, so that the customer may brush the sawdust off himself when he gets back up.” —Spider Robinson, author of Telempath (1976), The Free Lunch (2001) and many others in between On Mac’s 1991 chapbook, Dust From Outer Space: “Mac’s poetry is incisive, witty, and thought-provoking.” —Saint Mary’s Journal On Mac’s 1995 hypertext, Unnatural Habitats: “a rare disquieting beauty… The images come from the newspapers, television, or books, but are interiorized and made part of the narrator, whose voice is dry and evocative, an impossible combination that Kathy Mac achieves with apparent lightness… a pessimistic beautiful report from the front of what it means to be human.” —Susan Pajares Tosca, Hipertilia

Kathy Mac has published two books of poems: The Hundefräulein Papers (2009) about the years she spent as the dogsitter of Elisabeth Mann Borgese, and Nail Builders Plan for Strength and Growth (2002) which won the Gerald Lampert Award and was a finalist for the Governor General’s Award. As Kathleen McConnell, she’s also published the analytico-poetic book of essays Pain, Porn and Complicity: Women Heroes from Pygmalion to Twilight (2012). Despite a typically wander-filled early-writer’s life, she’s mostly settled in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada, where she teaches creative writing and literature at St. Thomas University.

Kathy Mac's profile page

On Mac’s 1991 chapbook, Dust From Outer Space: “Mac’s poetry is incisive, witty, and thought-provoking.”

Saint Mary’s Journal

On Mac’s 1995 hypertext, Unnatural Habitats: “A rare disquieting beauty… The images come from the newspapers, television, or books, but are interiorized and made part of the narrator, whose voice is dry and evocative, an impossible combination that Kathy Mac achieves with apparent lightness… a pessimistic beautiful report from the front of what it means to be human.”

Susan Pajares Tosca, Hipertilia