Meditation, baking and birdwatching are some of the many activities Kate Northrup, a creative writing professor at the University of Wyoming, has enjoyed the past decade while working at the University of Wyoming.
Northrup has taught at the university for 16 years, since 2008, when she moved to Laramie from Philadelphia, PA. After getting her MFA at the University of Iowa, she followed her partner to Laramie, and hasn’t left since.
To soothe her stressful life as a professor, Northrup took up meditation.
“It started as a kind of wellness thing when the university was going to cut creative writing and the 2020 election was going on,” Northrup said. “My anxiety was off the charts like I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t do my work.”
“I wouldn’t call it a hobby because I feel like that’s insulting to meditation. I guess I would call it a commitment,” she said.
In addition to meditation, Northrup enjoys nature walks and exercise. Northrup competed in a half-marathon last fall, finding it a very fulfilling accomplishment. She ran 13.1 miles in Fort Collins, Colorado.
“It’s a really big race,” Northrup said. “You take a bus up to the starting point and then you run down the Poudre River, the road it goes along . . . It’s pretty amazing. I was impressed. I didn’t actually know if I would finish or not.”
Northrup keeps a busy schedule and has taught multiple creative writing classes at the university. She is teaching a creative writing workshop, poetry, and her favorite class, creative writing with animals due to her more recent interest in them.
“I like it because increasingly, I’m interested in our relationships with animals.”
Northrup’s activities and commitments have become a powerful resource in her life, as she plans to teach creative writing at the university until retirement.
“It’s such a fabulous job reading people’s writing and learning. Not just about their lives, but about their imaginations.”
