Kelley Swan
I write about older women who have been made invisible — women in transition, out of marriages, out of mothering, out of careers, out of the visibility that being young and useful in the conventional ways once afforded them.I write about women like me.
ABOUT
Kelley Swan wrote her first story at six. Not only was it drafted in invisible ink, but it was about a family of mice with two cousins who terrorized each other, and who, by absolutely no coincidence at all, resembled her and her cousin Beth. She has been writing, in some form, in every year since — across literary and speculative fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and whatever else the day calls for. She was born in Massachusetts, dragged to New Hampshire in her teens, and now bounces between New Hampshire and Tampa, Florida. She is a second-year MFA candidate in Creative Nonfiction at the University of New Orleans and adjuncts in composition at a local college. Her current project is a gothic ghost story about older women, invisible towns, and a clock whose hands have been frozen for over a century.
Publications
My work has appeared in SLAB Literary Magazine, Bacopa Literary Review, Anti-Heroin Chic, GUD: Greatest Uncommon Denominator Magazine, Flash Me Magazine, Pif Magazine, THEMA Literary Journal, Commuter Lit, Mobius Blvd, Grand Little Things, Honeyguide Literary Magazine, As We Are Magazine, W.O.W. Women on Writing, Big Apple Parenting, Chick Lit Review, Derry News, Oysters & Chocolate, Prairie Times Magazine, the 6S Anthology Vol 1 & 2, and more. Some work has appeared under a byline.
Recent recognitions include the Bill Boggs Creative Nonfiction Contest, the Svenson Award for Fiction at the University of New Orleans, and the Booksie First Chapter Novel Contest.Earlier work has placed in the Flash Me Magazine Readers' Choice Award, California Dreamin' Contest (Romance Writers of America), the Drive 'Em Wilde Contest, the Writer's Digest Annual Writers' Competition, the NYC RWA Love & Laughter Contest, the Maryland Romance Writers Reveal Your Inner Vixen Contest, WOW-Women on Writing, the Long Fiction International Contest, the Artella Passion Poetry Contest, and the William Faulkner-Wisdom Writing Competition.NEWS:
October 2026 — An excerpt from Half-Past F has advanced to the next round of jury deliberations for the Speculative Literature Foundation's 2026 Older Writers Grant.October 2026 — "The Space Where She Used to Be" appears in SLAB Literary Magazine.2026 — Runner-up, Bill Boggs Creative Nonfiction Contest, for "The Space Where She Used to Be."2026 — Runner-up, Svenson Award for Fiction at the University of New Orleans, for "The Reconnaissance Mission."
Contact
For inquiries, please write to: [email protected]