Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1955-56
• Raised—Tampa, Florida, USA
• Education—N/A
• Currently—lives in St. Paul, Minnesota
N. M.Kelby (Nicole Mary Kelby) is an American short-story and novel writer. She was born in Toledo, Ohio, to a Polish-American father and French-born mother. When they divorced, her mother moved the family to Tampa, Florida. At 17 she begain interning at the St. Petersburg Times, saying years later in an interview...
I knew I wanted to be a writer, but the job market wasn’t great down there. I’d also been writing poetry, and you know what a fabulous, lucrative job that is. Somehow I heard about...the lively arts community in Minneapolis [Minn.]. I moved up here, got involved with The Loft, and that’s how my writing career started. I got jobs in PR, I worked as a food journalist, wrote for Skyway News, Where Magazine, I was a reporter and anchor for Fox 9 News, I was executive director of the cable access station in St. Paul.
Writing
She began her writing career as a playwright but later turned to novels and short stories. She is the author of The Pink Suit (2014), White Truffles in Winter (2011), Murder at the Bad Girl’s Bar and Grill (2008), Whale Season (2006), Theater of the Stars (2005), and In the Company of Angels (2001).
Her short stories have appeared in many publications including Zoetrope All-Story Extra, One Story, Minnesota Monthly, Verb, and Mississippi Review. One was recorded by actress Joanne Woodward for the NPR CD Travel Tales, and included in New Stories from the South: Best of 2006.
Kelby has been the recipient of a Bush Artist Fellowship in Literature, the Heekin Group Foundation’s James Fellowship for the Novel, both a Florida and Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowship in fiction, two Jerome Travel Study Grants, and a Jewish Arts Endowment Fellowship. She was named "Outstanding Southern Artist" by The Southern Arts Federation and her work has been translated into several languages. She has been a Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Award finalist for fiction three times and placed twice in the Nelson Algren Award for the Short Story.
Kelby took part in a month-long cultural exchange at Tyrone Guthrie Centre in County Monaghan, Ireland and will be the Artist-in-Residence at the Santa Fe Art Institute in May 2008. (From .)