Kayann Short
Kayann Short, Ph.D., is a writer, farmer, teacher, and activist at Stonebridge Farm, an organic community-supported farm in the Rocky Mountain foothills. Although Short left North Dakota for Colorado when she was four, she returned each summer to the fresh air and homegrown vegetables of her grandparents’ farms. From these farm roots, she gained a love for wholesome, natural food: as a teenager in the 1970s, she baked granola cookies, discovered quiche, and convinced her high school to carry real apples in the cafeteria vending machine.
During her undergraduate career at Colorado State University, Short was a member of The Feminist Group, a student organization that challenged sexism on campus by shutting down a dormitory Playboy Club, establishing a Women’s Film festival and newsletter, and organizing the community’s first Take Back the Night march. After earning her bachelor’s degree in literature and women’s studies, Short played violin in a symphony orchestra, became a mom, and managed organic produce at a food co-op. Following in her great-grandmother and grandmother’s teaching footsteps, she returned to graduate school for her Master’s and Ph.D. as a single parent and wrote her dissertation on the feminist press publishing movement.
As an award-winning teacher at the University of Colorado-Boulder, Short directed memoir and digital storytelling outreach projects with community elders, adult literacy students, and women’s organizations. She co-founded the service-learning project Reading Buddies, which paired her writing students with young readers to write books together and make reading fun. For their women’s literature service learning practicum, Short’s students created a digital story on positive body image that was selected for the National Organization for Women’s Love Your Body Day campaign. Following retirement from CU-Boulder, Short has continued her academic interests by establishing a feminist press library archive in memory of her college friend, June Friedman, at Colorado State University.
Short’s writing has appeared in Pilgrimage Magazine, Women’s Review of Books, The Bloomsbury Review, Edible Front Range, Colorado Gardener, and various academic journals. She teaches ecobiography workshops at Stonebridge Farm and the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology. She is writing a guide to ecology-based memoir and mentors individual clients on their own ecobiographies.
Short enjoys knitting, cooking, and playing old-time mandolin. Besides growing fresh vegetables, herbs, and flowers for Stonebridge members, Short is an activist for the important place of organic food production and agricultural preservation in a healthy, ecologically sustainable community. She writes about farming, literature, and the environment at pearlmoonplenty.wordpress.com.
