ABOUT KALI

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Kali White VanBaale is the author of the novels The Monsters We Make, The Good Divide, and The Space Between.  She's the recipient of an American Book Award, an Independent Publisher’s silver medal for general fiction, the Fred Bonnie Memorial First Novel Award, the Eric Hoffer Book Award for General Fiction, two Iowa Arts Council major artist grants, and the Great River Writer’s Retreat. She's also writes and publishes short stories and essays, is a regular contributor to the A&E Network True Crime blog series, writes the weekly craft newsletter The Writing Lab, and serves as the managing editor-at-large for the essay journal Past Ten.

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Kali holds an MFA in creative writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She's a core faculty member in the Lindenwood University MFA in Writing Program and was named Adjunct Professor of the Year in 2022, and a RISE Scholar in 2023. She regularly teaches writing workshops for the Iowa Summer Writing Festival and The Loft Literary Center among others. In addition to writing and teaching, Kali is an advocate and state lobbyist for mental healthcare reform and writes a mental healthcare column for the Iowa Writers' Collaborative.

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In previous professional lives, Kali was a county case manager for mentally disabled adults and children, a substitute librarian, a gymnastics instructor, a childcare provider, a waitress, a jewelry counter attendant at Target, and spent one winter working on a Christmas tree farm, and one summer detasseling cornfields. She also lived in a remote Hungarian village for several weeks while volunteering on an organic vegetable farm. 

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Born and raised on a dairy farm in southern Iowa, she now lives and writes on a quiet acreage outside Des Moines with her family.