Press Kit – katharine coldiron

IMPORTANT: I am Katharine, with two As, not Katherine, with two Es.

It happens often enough not to bother me much, so no need to apologize if you mess it up. But one is my name and the other isn’t.

Preferred bio

Katharine Coldiron is the author of Ceremonials, Junk Film, Wire Mothers, and Out There in the Dark. Her work has appeared in Ms., the Washington Post, Conjunctions, NPR, and many other places. Find her at kcoldiron.com.

Preferred headshot (credit: Modern Tintype)

Landscape headshot (credit: Barbara Manuel Potter)

Other headshots available upon request

Full-size cover for Out There in the Dark

Katharine Coldiron sees her life through a film projector. She watches The Sound of Music and observes that time is peculiarly preserved in a narrative film; she watches Singin’ in the Rain and finds truth and falsehood layered in it like dental veneers; she watches Apocalypse Now and thinks about her father, and a certain Pulitzer-winning photograph of an American POW. Out There in the Dark is a dynamic collection of essays that blends film criticism with memoir and fiction, as well as lists, visual diagrams, and Wikipedia collaging. It plumbs deeply some of our most knotted, abstract concepts: truth, kindness, the West, the female body, war, and—inevitably—Hollywood.

“Katharine Coldiron’s iconoclastic critical gaze and decadent prose alchemize cinema and autobiography into a book as vivid and resonant as the classic films within. Out There in the Dark is a hybrid wonder, a must.”

— Henry Hoke, author of Open Throat

“A marvelous combination of personal and pop cultural reflections, seen through the lens of the films she’s loved. Out There in the Dark threads its way somewhere between Roland Barthes and Emily Nussbaum, resulting in a collection that is thoughtful, trenchant, and keenly observed.”

— Elizabeth Gonzalez James, author of The Bullet Swallower

“Out There in the Dark is jargon-free, provocative, persuasive, and insightful. The critical intelligence in the imaginative position: this is what she deploys to a remarkable degree and across an impressively wide range of material.”

— David Shields

“A luminous object lesson in how we create our selves out of our experience of art, in the meaning that making meaning out of art can make out of our lives, Katharine Coldiron’s Out There in the Dark is surprising and moving, whether it’s taking on Apocalypse Now or Alien from L.A. Sometimes mournful, sometimes ecstatic, always insightful and personal, Coldiron’s hybrid essays are a joy to read and think through.”

— Gabriel Blackwell, author of Madeleine E. and Doom Town

Full-size cover for Wire Mothers

A woman begins to eat books when food can’t satisfy. A reporter discovers that sympathy for the devil might be misplaced. A grandmother organizes her crimes into neat checklists. These five stories, written by one of indie lit’s most versatile authors, explore bad vibes, bad choices, and bad parenting.

“Deliciously unsettling, picking and poking at the less savory corners of the way we care for each other–but also deeply empathetic. A gorgeous book.”

— Amber Sparks, author of And I Do Not Forgive You

“The stories here snap the synapses, the rituals and routines, and leave you somewhere else, alone maybe, lost maybe, but coursing with electricity and potential.”

— Tommy Dean, author of Hollows

“Wire Mothers is a powerhouse of characterization and insight. Each story bites into the reader, giving them stark glimpses into the lives of people they wouldn’t think they could possibly understand. People who are more like them than they could ever realize. With each story, Coldiron proves her mastery of language and the human heart.”

— Cathy Ulrich, author, Small Burning Things

A smart, slender collection with a fleshy underbelly. Incest, kidnapping, drug- and self-abuse, blood and shit and, of course, those bent-wire mothers (et alia). Reading Katharine Coldiron is like swinging from a chandelier; you know it’s going to crash but the light and the view are simply too dazzling to let go. Such a deliciously dark, satisfying read from a talented teller of tales.

— Debra Di Blasi, author, Birth of Eros

Full-size cover for Junk Film

Entire libraries of criticism study good art. Who studies bad art?

For the most part, bad movies have been buried by their creators, or have circulated in midnight screenings and Reddit threads. They’ve been used for humor by Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Red Letter Media, and presented as outrageous spectacle by critics and commentators. Rarely have bad movies been studied.

Junk Film‘s thirteen essays explore the failures of specific works created between the 1940s and the 2010s. Each demonstrates a different kind of failure, from mixing incompatible genres (Cop Rock) to stacking a screenplay with sociopaths (Staying Alive). The book uses a few basic theses about bad film and television to unpack these failures. Importantly, it shows what students of film can learn from bad movies: how to make art that works via watching art that doesn’t.

Junk Film bridges film scholarship and pop culture criticism with wit and warmth.

“What makes bad art bad? Does intent matter? Can you enjoy a terrible movie unironically? JUNK FILM is a smart and sneakily subversive read from a cultural critic with a magpie’s eye for glittering swill.”

— Ty Burr, film critic and author (Gods Like Us)

“I’ve always thought that if art is expression, can it fail? Katharine Coldiron does a wonderful job of examining this from both sides. She finds and analyzes a fascinating array of films. It made me laugh many times, and actually made me want to have a bad movie marathon!”

— Greg Sestero, actor & writer (The Room, The Disaster Artist)

“Bad movies have been very good to me – I’ve watched hundreds as a writer for Mystery Science Theater 3000 and RiffTrax, and even voluntarily. Katharine Coldiron’s examination of such movies names why I appreciate them so much – it’s smart, insightful, and entertaining, and it’s for film aficionados and snobs alike.”

— Mary Jo Pehl, writer and comedienne (MST3K, Rifftrax)

Full-size cover for Plan 9 from Outer Space

Designed by Neil Snowdon and David Chatton Barker

Plan 9 from Outer Space has been called the worst movie of all time. Studying such a film would seem needless, more painful than profitable. Katharine Coldiron takes the plunge anyway, and discovers, in the world of bad film, creative insight and practical lessons on how to make good art. She also breaks down, scene by scene, exactly how incompetent Plan 9 is. Full of good humor and backed by thousands of hours of research, this book offers a new perspective on how bad art fits into a well-rounded film education.

“A genuine treasure for Ed Wood fans.” —Andrew J. Rausch, coauthor, The Cinematic Misadventures of Ed Wood

“I thoroughly enjoyed Katharine Coldiron’s deep dive into Ed Wood’s schlock classic Plan 9 from Outer Space. Not only is it a hilarious, super-detailed analysis of what goes wrong, scene after scene, but it serves as a generous appreciation of the skill and vision it takes to make an actual good movie. It’s great fun.” —Bill Corbett, writer & cast member, Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Rifftrax

“Katharine Coldiron expertly breaks down why Plan 9 is so unique. It is both great and terrible, awful, yet beautiful. This is an endlessly entertaining read and it’s all true! But can your heart stand the shocking facts?” —Dana Gould, writer, comedian, spearheader of Plan 9 live shows

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