Kris­ten Iversen grew up in Col­orado and writes lit­er­ary non­fic­tion and fic­tion. Two-time win­ner of the Col­orado Book Award, her books include Full Body Bur­den: Grow­ing Up in the Nuclear Shad­ow of Rocky Flats; Mol­ly Brown: Unrav­el­ing the Myth; Shad­ow Box­ing: Art and Craft in Cre­ative Non­fic­tion; and a forth­com­ing lit­er­ary biog­ra­phy of Niko­la Tes­la. She is also edi­tor of the anthol­o­gy Doom with a View and co-edi­tor of the anthol­o­gy Don’t Look Now: Things We Wish We Hadn’t Seen. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Nation, Hotel Ameri­ka, The Amer­i­can Schol­ar, and oth­ers. Full Body Bur­den has been cho­sen by more than 30 uni­ver­si­ties around the coun­try for their Com­mon Read/​First Year Expe­ri­ence pro­grams and is the sub­ject of a forth­com­ing doc­u­men­tary. It has also been optioned for a major tv series.

In addi­tion to two Col­orado Book Awards, Iversen’s awards include an Ohio Arts Coun­cil Indi­vid­ual Excel­lence Award, the Bar­bara Sudler Award for Non­fic­tion, the Read­ing the West Award in Non­fic­tion, The Alum­ni Award for Cre­ative and Aca­d­e­m­ic Achieve­ment at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mem­phis, the Col­orado Endow­ment for the Human­i­ties Prize, the ANA Award for Jour­nal­is­tic Excel­lence, and fel­low­ships from the San Jose Arts Coun­cil, Col­orado Art Ranch, and the Vir­ginia Cen­ter for the Cre­ative Arts. In 2013 she was select­ed as a Barnes & Noble ​“Great New Writer” and was the top final­ist for the Barnes & Noble Dis­cov­er Award.

Iversen worked as a mag­a­zine edi­tor, a book edi­tor, and an inter­na­tion­al trav­el writer before earn­ing a PhD in Eng­lish, Cre­ative Writ­ing, from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Den­ver. She has taught at uni­ver­si­ties around the coun­try and abroad and is cur­rent­ly Pro­fes­sor of Eng­lish and Cre­ative Writ­ing at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cincin­nati, where she also serves as Lit­er­ary Non­fic­tion Edi­tor of The Cincin­nati Review. In 2021 Iversen was cho­sen as a Ful­bright Schol­ar to the Uni­ver­si­ty of Bergen, Nor­way.

Born in Des Moines, Iowa, Kris­ten grew up in Col­orado and cur­rent­ly divides her time between Cincin­nati and the small moun­tain town of West­cliffe, Col­orado. She is an avid envi­ron­men­tal­ist, hik­er, ski­er, and ani­mal lover.