the spiral key forthcoming
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previous works
Kelsey Day is a writer from southern Appalachia. Their work is urgent, evocative, and relentlessly vulnerable, and has been published in literary journals such as The Atlantic, Orion Magazine, Aeon, Freeman's, The Appalachian Review, The Washington Square Review, The Foundationalist, Brave Voices, and Our Shared Memory Collective. They are a recipient of the University of Chicago’s Young Memory Fellowship and the International Women's Writing Guild Fellowship, as well as a grant recipient of the Boston Art Opportunity Fund. Their debut young adult novel, The Spiral Key, is forthcoming from Viking, Penguin Random House, in 2026.
Day's first poetry book was published in their senior year of high school. Fresh, dark, and cutting, this collection "gracefully presents a raw look at teenage years, about what it means to be a teenager who is just trying to figure out how life works" (High Country Press, 2018). In the first year of publication, The Last Four Years became a bestselling book in their hometown of Boone, North Carolina. When the town's local book store, Foggy Pine Booksellers, risked closure in 2020, Day donated all book profits directly to the bookstore. Two years later, the book became a required text at Appalachian State University.
Rootlines, Day's sophomore collection, is a dream-soaked meditation on place and loss, grounded in the ancient soil of Appalachia. Kirkus Reviews called the book "a stunning ode to a landscape the author knows intimately," citing Day's "lively verbs," language that "thrums with energy," and metaphors that "dazzle" readers. All profits from Rootlines are donated directly to The Indigenous Environmental Network.
Day's first poetry book was published in their senior year of high school. Fresh, dark, and cutting, this collection "gracefully presents a raw look at teenage years, about what it means to be a teenager who is just trying to figure out how life works" (High Country Press, 2018). In the first year of publication, The Last Four Years became a bestselling book in their hometown of Boone, North Carolina. When the town's local book store, Foggy Pine Booksellers, risked closure in 2020, Day donated all book profits directly to the bookstore. Two years later, the book became a required text at Appalachian State University.
Rootlines, Day's sophomore collection, is a dream-soaked meditation on place and loss, grounded in the ancient soil of Appalachia. Kirkus Reviews called the book "a stunning ode to a landscape the author knows intimately," citing Day's "lively verbs," language that "thrums with energy," and metaphors that "dazzle" readers. All profits from Rootlines are donated directly to The Indigenous Environmental Network.
