About

Bio

I am a freelance reporter and essayist. My writing about the intersections of pop culture and the outdoors has appeared in the New York Times, Orion, Longreads, and many others; I’m also a senior features writer for Trails Magazine. I teach nonfiction writing workshops and mentor journalism students in Portland high schools through Literary Arts’s Writers-in-the-Schools program.

A 2025 recipient of the Oregon Literary Fellowship, I’ve also earned grants and residencies by the Bread Loaf Environmental Writers’ and Translators’ Conferences, the Spring Creek Project, Hypatia-in-the-Woods, and the Oregon State University President’s Commission on the Status of Women. I hold an MFA in creative writing from Oregon State University, where I was awarded the university’s graduate prize in nonfiction, and a BA in comparative literature from Brown University.

I write a lot about obsessions. Some of my own, at the moment: the history of professional wrestling, the movie Possession, and toxic-waste sites.

Want to work together? You can reach me at katherine.e.cusumano[at]gmail.com.

Press

Remembering ‘Twin Peaks’ and the legacy David Lynch left on the Pacific Northwest (Oregon Public Broadcasting)
Meet Katherine Cusumano, 2025 Oregon Literary Fellow (Literary Arts)
The Cultural Landscape (Oregon ArtsWatch)