Laura Hatch

Texas, literature

Laura Hatch is a poet and essayist who, though born in California in 1985, grew up in the Salt Lake, Utah area. She graduated from Utah State University with a degree in English and a minor in American Studies. After more than a decade as a stay-at-home parent, she returned to school and recently completed an MFA in Creative Writing with a minor in Women’s and Gender Studies at Texas State University, where she also taught Composition.

Her writing reflects on the intersections of daily life, the natural world, and the mystical. Laura writes of her work, “Writing often helps me make sense of my experiences, whether small or large, and poetry seems to be the way my soul feels most free to speak. Because of its concision and precision, poetry has a unique ability to tell the truth. It is not truth on a broad scale, however, to which poetry is most dedicated. It is the truth of a single moment, a single emotion, a single internal response to the way the evening light caresses the tops of the trees. For me, poetry has been a means of engaging with my faith in a divine creator and my destiny as an eternally creative being. Writing helps me work through complex feelings around my faith, family, and individual development, and I hope my work allows readers the same opportunity.”

She lives in New Braunfels, Texas with her husband and five children and is diligently working to learn the names of the birds and trees and wildflowers that have shared her yard for the past five years.