Kelly Kerwin is a writer whose work explores how women endure, adapt, and remake themselves in response to inherited damage. Her fiction and poetry draw inspiration from her Midwestern roots, cross-country road trips, and her hobby of restoring vintage furniture—infusing her storytelling with a sense of place, grit, and reinvention. She is the author of Spin Cycle, a novel about a teen mother navigating the fallout of an open adoption, as well as the poetry collection Home Repairs, the story collection Townie, the MG novel The Brown Baggers, and a growing body of personal essays. Kelly’s professional background in securities litigation, merchandising, and nonprofit fundraising—spanning creative production and public engagement—has helped cultivate a disciplined, detail-oriented approach to her writing. She also co-founded Little Home Away From Home, a project with her son that provided handmade dollhouses to women’s shelters for use in play therapy—an experience that echoes the central themes of safe spaces and maternal bonds in her work. Kelly earned a BA in English from the University of Illinois at Chicago and is a graduate of StoryStudio Chicago’s Novel in a Year program.
Novels
Spin Cycle (110,000 words)
Literary / Upmarket / Women’s Fiction
The Hairdressers’ Daughters (WIP)
Literary / Upmarket / Women’s Fiction
The Brown Baggers (100,000 words)
Middle Grade / Low Fantasy
MoJo (V1 available)
Psychological Suspense / Thriller
Male Protagonist
The Nanny Network (V1 available)
Psychological Suspense / Thriller
Proximity (V1 available)
Psychological Suspense / Thriller
The Pig Farmer (In embryo)
Historical Fiction
Intensives &
Juried Programs
StoryBoard Conference Cohort
Instructors: Morgan Talty and Juan Martinez
Intensive Coaching Cohort, StoryStudio Chicago
Instructor: Julia Fine
Novel in a Year Program, StoryStudio Chicago
Instructor: Lindsay Hunter
PubCrawl: Learn, Pitch, Publish (’25)
StoryBoard Festival (’24)
Ragdale Writers’ Retreat (’22)
Chicago Writers’ Conference and Pitchfest (’15)
Short Story Collections
Townie (WIP)
Featuring The Rope
Good Enough
Including Sweet Adeline’s, Karaoke Night at the Corner Tap, Tony and Maria, and Good Enough
Road to Colorado (Based on an oral history)
Burning Bridges (Of myth and memory)
Poetry Collections
Home Repairs
Including Komodo, The Orchard, Wood to Soil, Service Call, and Oh Puberty!
Selected Essays
“It’s a Fine, Fine Day”
“The Team, The Team, The Team”
“What Does She Do All Day?”
“Putting My House in Order”
“#Goals”
Blog
kellykerwinwrites.com
Established July 2015
Education
B.A. in English
University of Illinois at Chicago
Red Shoes Review
Student Publication Contributor
Categories: My Posts
Kelly Kerwin Writes 