Mary-Kim Arnold

Profile

Mary-Kim Arnold is the author of The Fish & The Dove: Poems (Noemi Press) and Litany for the Long Moment (Essay Press). A transnational, transracial Korean-born adoptee, her text and textile work explore themes of hybridity, dislocation, racial and cultural identity, and gender. She serves as Senior Editor for Collaborative & Cross-Disciplinary Texts at Tupelo Quarterly.

Mary-Kim has taught creative and critical writing at Brown University, Wheaton College, Rhode Island School of Design, and in the Newport MFA at Salve Regina College. Prior to returning to teaching, Mary-Kim spent more than a decade working in and with arts and cultural nonprofit and philanthropic organizations, focused on making programs and funding more accessible and inclusive.

She began her administration work in the department of Alumni Relations at Brown, where she worked with the newly-forming affinity groups for alumni of color and served as the liaison between the groups and university administration. She was the inaugural Director of Evaluation and Learning at the Rhode Island Foundation, and led the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities, an independent nonprofit affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. She has served in Board leadership roles at the International Charter School, the Women’s Fund of Rhode Island, New Urban Arts, and Dirt Palace Public Projects. In 2021, she was appointed to the Board of the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts.

Mary-Kim holds a B.A. in English and an MFA in fiction writing from Brown University, and an MFA in poetry from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Mary-Kim lives in Pawtucket, Rhode Island with her family.