ABOUT
AUTHOR'S BIO
Amy Butcher is an award-winning essayist and the author of two books, including, most recently, Mothertrucker, a hybrid work of memoir and literary journalism that interrogates the realities of female fear, abusive relationships, and America’s quiet epidemic of intimate partner violence set against the geography of remote, northern Alaska. To date, the book has sold over 10,000 copies, received over 5,000 reviews, and earned notable praise from Publisher’s Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, The Wall Street Journal, Good Morning America, CBS News, The Chicago Review of Books, The Oxford Review of Books, Booklist, and others. Early excerpts were also awarded an Individual Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council, with judges calling the book “very well-written,” “well-researched,” and “a positive antidote to the trauma of violence against women.” The Wall Street Journal wrote “[Mothertrucker] is a rattling good story...shot through with poignant insights.” Kirkus Reviews called it “a searching and deeply empathetic memoir” and “a sobering reflection on verbal and psychological abuse [that] honors the healing power of female friendship and questions the nature of divinity beyond its constricting patriarchal manifestations. Publisher’s Weekly called the book “tender and gripping,” writing, “[Mothertrucker] explores
myriad issues with nuance and grace, including Indigenous rights, violence against women, religious hypocrisy, and environmental concerns.” Butcher’s first book, Visiting Hours (Blue Rider Press/Penguin-Random House, 2015), earned starred reviews and praise from The New York Times Sunday Review of Books, NPR, The Star Tribune, Kirkus Reviews, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, and others. Excerpts of her new book were awarded a 2024 Individual Excellence Award by the Ohio Arts Council and named a finalist in the 2025 Iowa Review Award for nonfiction. Additional essays have been featured on National Public Radio and the BBC, anthologized in Best Travel Writing, awarded grand prize in the Iowa Review Award as judged by David Shields, and been awarded notable distinctions in the 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2020 and 2021 editions of the Best American Essays series. Her essays have appeared in Granta online, Harper’s online, The New York Times “Modern Love,” The New York Times Sunday Review, The Washington Post, The Denver Post, The Iowa Review, Lit Hub, Guernica, Gulf Coast, Fourth Genre, and Brevity, among others. She earned her MFA from the University of Iowa’s Nonfiction Writing Program and is the recipient of Colgate University’s Olive B. O'Connor Creative Writing Fellowship in nonfiction as well as grants and awards from the Vermont Studio Center, the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, the Academy of American Poets, the Ohio Arts Council, Word Riot Inc., and the Stanley Foundation for International Research. She is an Associate Professor of English and Creative Writing at Denison University and teaches annually with the Iowa Summer Writing Festival, the Sitka Fine Arts Camp, and the Reynolds Young Writers Workshop. She is cofounder, along with Brendan Jones, of the annual Sitka Writers Retreat, and during the summer serves as an Adult Enrichment Lecturer aboard Princess Cruises' Inside Passage Alaskan itineraries. She splits her time between Alaska and Columbus, Ohio, where she lives with her two rescue dogs, beautiful beasts.