Kris Whorton is originally from Boulder, Colorado. She moved to the south late in 1997 and has lived in Chattanooga, TN since 2002. Whorton teaches creative, scientific, and professional writing and literature at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, where she directs the English Internship program. She served as the assistant director of the Meacham Writers’ Workshop for 4 years.

Whorton has an MFA in Creative Writing from the Rainer Writing Workshop and an MA in English Literature from the University of Alabama at Huntsville. She works with teens and adults in the community and the incarcerated in Hamilton and Bradley County.

Whorton’s second poetry collection, Everyday Omens, will be released from Sheila-Na-Gig Editions in March 2026. Her first poetry collection, Alchemy, was released in 2023. Her poems, fiction, and creative nonfiction have appeared in anthologies and journals.

Whorton lives in the woods with her husband and two Australian shepherds.