Past Artists-in-Residence

Nora Kirkham

Fall 2020 ITIA Artist-in-Residence
Hometown: Bath, Maine (Raised in Tokyo, Sydney, and Bucharest)
Education: BA in English and History, Gordon College, Massachusetts

MA in Creative Writing, University College Cork, Ireland

MLitt in Theology and the Arts, University of St Andrews

After completing her dissertation on the role of mountains in the Christian imagination and iconography with ITIA in 2020, Nora served as Artist-in-Residence, where she continued developing a portfolio of poetry and prose inspired by the North Sea, Celtic folklore, and other elements of St Andrews’ coastal landscape, as well as poems shaped by her travels home to Tokyo and Maine.

Several of these poems are now featured in publications including Arboreal Magazine, Among Worlds, Macrina Magazine, Fathom, and Peregrine. A selection of her poems, titled “On Folding,” was displayed at Transept’s Enfolding Exhibition in 2023.

Nora is a PhD candidate in English at the University of Aberdeen where she is researching the role of religion and the environment in modern and contemporary women’s writing. She is especially interested in the themes of home, dislocation, and the body in women’s writing, as well as post-secularism in contemporary Irish women’s writing.

You can learn more about Nora’s writing and research at her website: https://norakirkham.tumblr.com/writing