Libby Kurz is a writer, poet, registered nurse, and US Air Force veteran. She holds a BS in Nursing from UNC-Charlotte and an MFA in Creative Writing from National University. Her work appears in The Iowa Review, Ruminate, The Other Journal, Literary Mama, and Driftwood Press, among others. Her poetry was awarded first prize in the New Voices category of the Poetry Society of Virginia’s 2017 Contest. In 2019, Finishing Line Press published her poetry chapbook, The Heart Room, which chronicles her experiences working as a cardiothoracic nurse in Norfolk, Virginia. An excerpt from her memoir in progress won 2nd place in the 2022 Jeff Sharlet Memorial Prize for Veterans, judged by Jerri Bell. She teaches poetry, memoir, and trauma writing workshops for The Muse Writers Center, The Armed Services Arts Partnership, and the Wounded Warrior Project. After a decade of moving cross country with the military, she resides in Virginia Beach with her husband, three teenagers, and 115lb lap dog.

Extended Bio

As a girl and a teen, I approached the blank page as a visual artist, expressing myself through paint and charcoal, shape and shadow. My favorite subject matter was always the human body, and my interest in anatomy as an art form and a science (along with the need for a “real job”) eventually led me to nursing school.

In the wake of 9/11, as college graduation loomed, I joined the military on impulse, a decision I’ve been unpacking ever since. For the next four years, I served as a nurse in the US Air Force, caring for human bodies traumatized by illness, domestic violence, gang violence, and war. By the end of my commitment in 2007, I was also a newlywed, a new mom, and burned out. I craved a return to my artistic roots, a way to process my experiences, and it was during this time, as a late twenty-something, that I was drawn to language as a medium for expression.

A few years later, I decided to pursue the art degree I’d always wanted. I used my GI Bill to work toward an MFA in Creative Writing, with a concentration in poetry. Amidst a deploying spouse, birthing and raising children, an international adoption, and several cross-country moves, graduate school took me six years to complete, but in 2014, I finally walked the stage, degree in hand.

Over the next eight years, I straddled multiple jobs—one as a part-time nurse, the other as a part-time writer and teacher, along with the full-time work of mothering young children. I worked as a surgical nurse in multiple specialties, including cardiac surgery, and continued to publish and teach creative writing workshops. But each year, the art kept calling, asking me to give it more time and concentration. Finally, in the summer of 2021, I resigned from my nursing job so I could fully commit to my passion for writing.

Now, as a forty-something woman, I approach the blank page as a poet and writer, but I realize it’s not so different from visual art. To me, writing is like painting with words. The study of poetry introduced me to language in its most potent form. I learned the power of a single concrete image to communicate complex truths. As the late poet Richard Hugo says, poets know that we don’t use language. Language uses us. When we pay attention to the images embedded within our present life and past memory, we find that the world is always speaking back to us, revealing the truth, showing us to ourselves.

My favorite subject matter is still the human body, and most of my writing explores themes related to mental health, motherhood, sexuality, spirituality, and violence as they pertain to corporeal experience. As a nurse, military veteran, and a writer, I’m drawn to the study of trauma and the overlap between writing and healing. I’m particularly interested in how poetic devices allow us to write about traumatic experiences in ways that feel safe, ethical, authentic, and of course, creatively crafted.

Writing is a primary mode through which I’ve made connections, seen patterns, and begun to integrate my life’s fragments into something more whole. I’ve learned that the ingredients necessary to write well––curiosity, awareness, embodiment, and compassion––are the same needed to live well. When we get our hands dirty in the creative process and hold an artist’s eye up to our own lives, we can unearth its raw material and begin the transformative work of creation. Writing has given me the gift of myself. As a writing teacher, I am excited and honored to walk other writers through the images and patterns their own life is telling.