NEWS:

Baltimore writers! Kris will be teaching a new course this summer at CCBC Hunt Valley. Part of the Seniors Program, her course “STORYTELLING AND SOUND” uses music as a springboard for creative writing. Writers of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry are all welcome!

The class will have in-session prompts, and will also have time each week for discussion and feedback on student work. Plus, we’ll learn about different periods in music history, specific composers, and particular musical forms. The class meets on eight consecutive Wednesdays, 1-3 pm, beginning on July 10.

Interested? Find out more at CCBC’s Continuing Education website, and register online here! The course number is 70415.

What students say about Kris’s teaching:

“I cannot tell you how much I respect you as a teacher and how much I am getting out of the classes.” – Fred G., writing workshop member at BCPL Cockeysville

“You’ve made me such a better writer. I can’t thank you enough.” – Christina H., writing workshop member at BCPL Cockeysville

“I personally loved the writers’ workshop. I love to write and being a part of this elective has helped me open up to more different types of writing. Thank you!” – Diamond C., Baltimore Bridges workshop participant

BOOKS:

Find To Love A Stranger in paperback and e-book formats on Amazon, and in paperback at Barnes and Noble.

Connect with me (and leave a review) on Goodreads!

Praise for Kris’s debut novel:

“To Love A Stranger is a page-turner, a story that will resonate with the reader for a long time to come.” – Geeta Kothari, author of I Brake For Moose and Other Stories

“Faatz takes her reader into the music in a way that feels genuine and serious, yet never overly technical. Her sentences make me want to listen to Chopin’s third Ballade, to Brahms’ Hungarian Dances.” – Hannah Howard, author of Feast

“To Love A Stranger was written with the harmony of humanity in mind. To Love A Stranger is a song.” – Leesa Cross-Smith, author of Whiskey & Ribbons

“It’s the kind of book people don’t write enough anymore, one where you’re just with the people, and there’s nothing to get in between you and them.” – Tom Andes, author

About Me:

Kris Faatz (rhymes with skates) is a fiction writer and musician. Her first novel, To Love A Stranger, was a finalist for the 2016 Schaffner Press Music in Literature Award and was released May 2017 by Blue Moon Publishers (Toronto, ON).

Kris’s short fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Kenyon Review Online, Potomac Review, Glassworks, Reed, Bluestem, Luna Station Quarterly, and Digging Through the Fat, among other journals, and has received recognition in competitions run by Glimmer Train, The Woven Tale Press, and NYC Midnight. She has been a contributor at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference and the recipient of a Peter Taylor Fellowship at the Kenyon Review Writers Workshops. In 2018, she served as a preliminary-round judge for the Flannery O’Connor Short Fiction Award. She currently teaches writers’ workshops with the Baltimore County Public Library system, Baltimore Bridges, and Writopia Lab DC.

Kris is a no-holds-barred reader with special devotion to Barbara Kingsolver, Terry Pratchett, Richard Adams, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Steinbeck, Christopher Moore, and Neil Gaiman. She loves hiking and exploring the outdoors, especially if it involves lakes, oceans or streams. She lives in Maryland with her husband, jazz saxophonist and composer Paul Faatz, and feline contingent Alafair, Templeton, and Fergus.