Kathleen Tarr’s essays, articles, and poems have appeared in the Sewanee Review; Alaska Quarterly Review; Creative Nonfiction; Grand Valley Magazine; Alaska Airlines in-flight magazine (Alaska Beyond); Anchorage Daily News, We Alaskans; Cirque Journal (literary journal of the Pacific Northwest), and in several Merton-related anthologies and peer-reviewed journals. She has also published several pieces for America Magazine (translated into Russian).
BOOKS
We Are All Poets Here (VP&D House, 2018)
A select list of other publications include:
ANTHOLOGIES
Merton & Indigenous World Wisdom (Two of Kathleen’s essays appear in this anthology from Fons Vitae Press, edited by Dr. Peter Savastano (Seton Hall University) and pre-eminent Merton scholar & editor, Jonathan Montaldo, 2019)
We Are Already One: Thomas Merton’s Message of Hope (1915-2015), Fons Vitae Press, 2015. (Kathleen’s essay, “The Comeback Monk,” appeared in this international volume honoring the centenary of Thomas Merton’s birth.)
Cold Flashes: Literary Snapshots of Alaska, University of Alaska Press, 2010. (Kathleen’s essay, “Village of Old Believers,” was included in this anthology.)
Keep It Real: Everything You Need to Know About Researching & Writing Creative Nonfiction, W.W. Norton & Company, 2011; editor, Lee Gutkind (Kathleen contributed a piece to The ABCs of Creative Nonfiction, precursor to this anthology)
JOURNALS
Cirque Literary Journal, “Circumventing the Non-Human World: An Interview with Poet, Marybeth Holleman,” February 2023.
The Merton Seasonal, “The Necessity of Pilgrimage,” fall/winter 2022-23.
EcoTheo Review, “True Ground” (essay on the poet, John Mead Haines, November 5, 2021.)
Vilnius Review, Vilnius, Lithuania, “Four Portraits of Lithuanian-Americans in Alaska,” by Laima Vince. (Kathleen was one of four people profiled by Lithuanian-American writer, poet, & translator, Laima Vince, for this essay published in Vilnius Review, September 8, 2021.)
Alaska Quarterly Review, “The Haughty One” (poem), winter/spring 2021
Cirque Journal, “On a Bus Through Lower Silesia” (poem), summer 2021
The Merton Seasonal, “From the Inner Frontier to the Last Frontier: Thomas Merton’s Alaska Journey” (peer-reviewed journal of the International Thomas Merton Society, winter 2019, Vol. 44, No.4)
Cirque Journal, “Travels with Thomas: Kathleen Witkowska Tarr on the Maverick Monk and the Modern Contemplative”; writer and poet, Marybeth Holleman, interviews Kathleen W. Tarr, winter 2019, Vol. 10, No. 1
Cirque Journal, Volume 8, no. 1, “Igor and the Holy Mountain,” essay adapted from We Are All Poets Here and nominated for a Pushcart Prize, 2017.
Cirque Journal, Volume 6, no. 1 – “The Far Edges of the Fourth Genre: An Anthology of Explorations in Creative Nonfiction,” book review
Cirque Journal, Volume 2, no. 2 – “My First Discovery of Richard Rodriguez,”essay
Sewanee Review, “The Trappist Monk and Pasternak’s Tree,” Summer 2013.
TriQuarterly, January 23, 2012 – Linda McCarriston: Interview
NEWSPAPERS
Anchorage Daily News, April 13, 2020, “Alaska in the Pandemic Spring”
Anchorage Daily News, July 20, 2019: “To the Moon, Alaska!”
Anchorage Daily News, February 8, 2019: “The November Earthquake and its Psychological Impacts.”
Anchorage Daily News, September 14, 2018, “A Monk’s Journey to Alaska, Fifty Years Later”
The Catholic Anchor, September 2018, “Thomas Merton & Alaska: A Good Match Cut Short”
The Catholic Anchor, August 2018 – “Before Dying Merton Shared Insights on Religious Life with Alaska Nuns”
The Catholic Anchor, June 2018, “Fr. Thomas Merton’s 196 Trek to Alaska’s Wild Places”
The Catholic Anchor, May 2018 – “Anchorage’s First Archbishop Enticed Merton to Alaska”
Alaska Dispatch News, July 25, 2016 – “Make America Think Again”
Anchorage Press, September 17, 2008 – “Taking on the Good Old Boys” (commentary on Sarah Palin)
INTERVIEWS
“A Writer Whose Life Has Been Changed by T. Merton”, by Rosita Garskaite, Bernardinai.lt (Kathleen was interviewed in Vilnius, Lithuania. November 19, 2019.
Cirque, “Travels with Thomas: Kathleen Witkowska Tarr on the Maverick Monk and the Modern Contemplative”; Alaskan author and poet, Marybeth Holleman, interviews Kathleen W. Tarr, winter 2019, Vol. 10, No. 1
YouTube
National speaker, “Tuesdays With Merton” monthly podcast series, sponsored by International Thomas Merton Society & Saint Mary’s College, South Bend, Indiana. Kathleen presented an hour-long live-stream program from Anchorage on November 8, 2021. The program is available for viewing on YouTube: “From the Inner Frontier to the Last Frontier: Merton’s 1968 Journey to Alaska.”
BLOGS
“Poetic Interference,” 49Writers, March 10, 2022
Featured Writer/Guest Blogger, 49 Writers, month of October 2017:
“Toward a 21st Century Counterculture”
“Thomas Merton & the Art of the Journal”
“Listening to a Literary Monk”
“A Harvest of Wisdom: Lessons from a First Book”
Sick Pilgrim, February 18, 2016 – Dark Devotional: Second Sunday of Lent
49 Writers, February 2, 2016 – “Anna Akhmatova: Disaster Did Not Wither Her”
Sewanee Review-Spilt Ink, November 3, 2014 – “Jazz & Thomas Merton: Defiant Artistry”
49 Writers, May 5, 2014 – “Taking the Circum-Poland Route”
49 Writers, March 10, 2014 – “Poland as Muse”
49 Writers, October 3, 2012 – “On Salmon Rushdie & the Necessity of the Imaginative Dimension“
Kathleen W. Tarr 