ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kelly Watt is a Canadian writer and poet. She has published three books: a collection of poetry and flash prose, called The Weeping Degree (2024); the gothic novel Mad Dog, Hamilton Stone Editions, US (2019), Doubleday Canada (2001); and mini travel book, Camino Meditations, HSE (2014.)
Kelly's astrologically-inspired poetry book, The Weeping Degree, became a 2024 finalist in the Wishing Shelf Independent Book Awards (2025.) The book was an international Amazon bestseller August (2024), when released. The chapbook was a finalist in the San Miguel de Allende's Poetry Mesa and Wild Rising Press chapbook contest, (2023.) Her short fiction and nonfiction have been published internationally, and longlisted four times for the prestigious CBC Short Story and Nonfiction Contests. Her creative nonfiction has been highlighted for the best of travel writing Nowhere Magazine, (2019) and won an Honourable Mention at Grit Lit, Hamilton's Readers and Writers' Festival, Memoir Contest (2019).
Watt
Watt has a second life as a spiritual seeker. She spent a month at a retreat in a Buddhist Monastery in Nepal at 18 years old and spent years studying Tibetan Buddhism in various centers around the world for years afterwards. She is a certified Five Tibetan Yoga’s instructor, EFT International Tapping Instructor, and completed her meditation teacher training at Naturality School (formerly Samagra Path) in Hamilton, Ontario (2015). She loves going on pilgrimages and has done three to date. In 2008 she walked the Camino de Santiago to get sober. In 2012, she did the second largest pilgrimage in Mexico, to San Juan de Los Lagos, Mexico with a group of women healers. And in 2015, she returned to India to do a third pilgrimage. She occasionally leads volunteer meditation walks on The Bruce Trail in Dundas, Ontario.
Awards & Recognitions
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- 2024 Finalist in the 2024 Wishing Shelf Independent Book Awards in the U.K.
- 2024 Longlisted for the CBC Nonfiction Contest
- 2023 Finalist for the SMA Wild Rising Press and Poetry Mesa Chapbook Contest
- 2019 Longlisted for the CBC Nonfiction Contest
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2019 Honourable Mention at gritLIT, Hamilton's Readers and Writers Festival. Read her story here!
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2018 Longlisted for the prestigious CBC Short Story Prize; Kelly's story Fall of the High Flyers, was in the top 27 out of two thousand submissions.
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2015 Longlisted for the prestigious CBC Short Story Contest
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2012 Longlisted in the Gloria Vanderbilt Short Fiction Contest
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1991 FIRST PRIZE WINNER in Dandelion Magazine's short story contest