ABOUT
Photograph by Adam Michaels
Published Work
Creative Nonfiction
“Dancing with the Sky,” Carlow University MFA Anniversary Anthology, 2023
Short Story
“Oracle in a Red Coat,” Tales from the Silver State, 2016
Poetry
“Puzzle Pieces,” The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 2020
Feature Articles
“Pittsburgh 250: Then and Now,” Fanfare Magazine, 2008
“Ben Roethlisberger: Steelers Quarterback Goes to the Dogs and Scores,” Fanfare Magazine, 2008
“Reinventing Pittsburgh One Person at a Time,” Pop City, 2007
“STOP for a Midlife Adjustment,” Pittsburgh Quarterly, Summer 2007
“Eating Is a Political Act,” Table Magazine, Summer 2007
The WRiting
Reclaiming Grace (pending publication)
This character-led debut novel explores the devastating effects of hidden history and the revelatory and transcendent act of excavating truth.
Johanna Jansen, a young sociologist from the Upper West Side of New York goes on a journey to a declining mining town in the hills of Appalachia. Hidden between the lines of her professional goal to study “these people” is a personal quest to determine if blood dictates destiny.
This House We’ve Built: One Woman’s Search for America (work in progress)
KJ writes about her search to understand what it means to be an American in a divided country approaching its 250-year anniversary. This project erupted in 2024 while facing the realities of breast cancer and democracy in peril. She promised herself, if she survived cancer, chemo, surgery, and a crumbling identity, she would go on a journey to look square-eyed at her country and herself. She wanted the truth. An ordinary citizen in search of her America, her estranged body, and her soul. (Spoiler alert: As of May 2026, she is surviving and has traveled 10,000 miles, explored the dark shadows of America, and experienced transcendent insights.)
Photograph by Adam Michaels
THE AUTHOR
K.J. Bryant lives and writes in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. But before she puts one word on the page, she is on the road, in museums, and across kitchen tables conducting research.
For her debut novel, Reclaiming Grace, she immersed herself in the uncharted landscape of coal mining for four years traveling through southern West Virginia excavating buried history that underpins this story.
And for her memoir, This House We’ve Built: One Woman’s Search for America, K.J. is compelled to stand on the ground of our country’s darkest moments and witness. And along the way, she uncovers some of America’s proudest moments and hidden champions.
The journey for both these books has taught K.J. what it takes for a writer to tell an authentic story. Research, of course. But more important, to see past convenient stereotypes into the heart and soul of a story, a character, and a country. Luckily, she finds the most surprising guides.
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