featured in the 2026 Best in Rural Writing Anthology
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forthcoming in Adirondack Life Magazine (July / August 2026)
featured in the 2026 Best in Rural Writing Anthology / / forthcoming in Adirondack Life Magazine (July / August 2026)
Author Bio
Catherine J. Dorian is a writer and teacher, constantly reconciling her desire to nurture her stories with the igniting inquiry of the classroom. On the page, she explores what she rarely has the gumption to say in live time. She is the recipient of a Poet & Author Fellowship from the Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing and the O’Dwyer Scholarship from the California-based Community of Writers. She splits her time between Massachusetts and the Adirondacks, NY.
Devour
2026 Best in Rural Writing - The Milk House
On a morning in March, for what might have been the fifth time in two years, I snoozed until 5:15. In bed, I agonized over whether I would keep the promise I had made to myself the night before: that this morning, I would skip my scheduled sixty minutes of power yoga. I would not skimp on my usual breakfast of one-half of a cup of oats, one-third of a scoop of protein powder, one handful of blueberries, and one tablespoon of pumpkin seeds.
“Bleed” - Fourth Place in Memoir / Personal Essay in the Writer’s Digest 94th Annual Contest
Essays // Memoir
“Lessons in Chemistry: Parting with an Adirondack fantasy” - Adirondack Life Magazine - July / August 2026
“Devour” - Where Meadows, Issue 2.1, July 2024
“The Right Kind of Rejection” - named Vocal Top Story (June 2024)
“Confronting What Scares Me” - named Vocal Top Story (March 2024)
“Readers don’t have to love you. Do you love you?” - named Vocal Top Story (February 2024)
“This Heaven We Have, Here” - awarded first place in the Vocal #200 Challenge (January 2024)
“Silence Killed My Spirit. Then, it Killed My Relationship” - Plan the Marriage Magazine
Fiction // Flash
The Definition of Insanity
The Milk House, January 2025
Adam clutches the rim of his Canadian Club and 7-Up, working the room of fellow farmers while I grip the cap of a Nestle water bottle. At the open bar I catch the crevasse of his back, pluck his third CC and 7, take a sip, and rise to his jaw: “I’m ready to go when you are.” He tips his head back, dumps the lingering gold down his throat. He swishes the cubes with his tongue, crunching them between...
“A Former Student Visits My Classroom” - Vine Leaves Press, “50 Give or Take,” #1896
“An Answer from the Sky” - named Vocal Top Story (January 2024)
“Finding a Name” - named Vocal Top Story and awarded first place in the Vocal Past Life Challenge (July 2023)
// academic publications //
“Linking Local Communities to Critical Rural English Pedagogies” with Robert Petrone, Allison Wynhoff Olsen, and Elizabeth Reierson - Teaching English in Rural Communities: Toward a Critical Rural English Pedagogy, Rowman & Littlefield (2021)
“Reputation and Rurality: Using a Montana-Authored Text to Talk About Agency and Language in the Secondary English Classroom” - Montana English Journal, Vol.41 (2019)
“Combining Postcolonial, Feminist Lenses to Teach Agency” - MATELA Update (2017)
// guest blogs //
“Audience Awareness: Shaping Student Writing Beyond the Classroom” with Erin Lebacqz - Teach Better (October 2023)
“Feeling bitter? Write it. Then, rewrite it.” - Teach Better (August 2023).
“Repeat Offender” with Brian Miller (January 2023)