Meet Kelly S. Thompson | Author and Educator

We had the good fortune of connecting with Kelly S. Thompson and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Kelly S., what’s one piece of conventional advice that you disagree with?
Write what you know.

As an author of memoir, this probably feels like weird advice to disagree with, but books would be awfully short if I only wrote about things I knew. I write because I want to learn and grow, and it doesn’t matter that it happened to me in my own life…I look to make sense of difficult experiences, to gain new understanding from them.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember, but after 9/11, I joined the Canadian military. After an injury, I was medically released and wanted to get back to what I love most: writing. I published my first book, Girls Need Not Apply: Field Notes From the Forces, in 2019, which was noted as a top 100 book of 2019. It was a memoir about my time in the Canadian Armed Forces, in which I experienced a lot of sexual harassment and had a lot of complicated feelings, and writing helps me work through those feelings. So it made sense that I would turn to writing for my second book, Still, I Cannot Save You: A memoir of sisterhood, love and letting go, which came out just in February. It’s about abuse, addiction, and relationships with people who hurt us. But most of all, it’s a book about grief. When my sister died, I realized that so many of the books out there were about relationships with people who were martyrized, or with whom the author had some perfect, rosy relationship. I wanted to see the ugliness underneath and fine some beauty in it. That’s what my writing does.
That’s why I love teaching–I teach a master’s in fine arts degree at a Canadian university that focuses on creative non fiction. The power of true stories never fails to capture me.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Hilariously, I have a friend visiting soon so I have a perfect list! Travel up a mountain is always key to me, so I’d do the Pike’s Peak train for a visit to one of our 14s! Our area has such spectacular arts and culture, so inevitably we’d take in a show (some burlesque at Clocktower Caberet, perhaps?) and then dinner at Root Down. I have celiac, so I have to be careful about where I eat, but Root Down has always kept me safe. We’d also have to make a trip to Fifty-two 80s to find some childhood treasures. And always a nice walk around the Garden of the Gods. There’s something special in that red rock.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I am who I am because of the Canadian Armed Forces, which I served for eight years and served as the jumping off point for my first book. While I have a lot of difficult feelings towards the organization that hurt me, I’m also grateful for being taught about all that I am, about the boundaries I can push, the toughness within me.

Website: https://kellysthompson.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kellysthompsonwriter/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kellysthompson/?originalSubdomain=ca

Twitter: https://twitter.com/kellys_thompson?lang=en

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KellySThompsonWritingandEditing/

Image Credits
First photo Headshot: Krystina Marie Photography