Kip Robinson Greenthal

Kip Robinson Greenthal has dedicated her career to books. She holds a B.A. in English Literature and Creative Writing from Sarah Lawrence College, where she studied with Grace Paley. For eighteen years, she worked as a librarian in schools and public libraries. In 1993, she became the Education Director for Seattle Arts & Lectures, and founded and directed the Writers in the Schools program (WITS). Believing literacy empowers a person’s life, Kip collaborated with a vast number of local and visiting authors—Tim O’Brien, Frank McCourt, and Marilynne Robinson among them—to work with teachers and students in the classroom.  Under her guidance, WITS received the prestigious Golden Apple Award, which honors education, programs, and schools in making a difference in Washington state education.

Throughout her working years, Kip has always been a writer. She writes short stories, and recently has completed her first novel, Shoal Water, which takes place in Nova Scotia, where Kip lived for twelve years.  She has studied the craft of writing with numerous authors, including Brenda Peterson, Rebecca Brown, James Welch, and Jane Hamilton. She was selected for the Jack Straw Writers Program, and awarded a Hedgebrook residency. Her short story, "Tattoo Emporium," was published in Secret Histories: Stories of Courage, Risk, and Revelation, 2013, edited by Brenda Peterson, Laura Foreman, and Meredith Bailey, and first appeared in print online, and through the publication of Currents, an anthology published by SHARK REEF in 2004. In 2007, Washington state Poet Laureate Elizabeth Austen selected her short story, “Stealing,” recorded at Jack Straw, to be aired on KUOW’s On the Beat.