SHRED! Running and Being

At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, poet Kevin Carollo struggles to navigate the sudden and jarring changes to everyday life. To help find meaning and purpose in the "new normal," Carollo straps on his shoes and returns to a part of his identity that he has neglected: long-distance running and long-form writing. It's not easy. Pandemic restrictions and the harsh, upper Midwest weather are discouraging. At the same time, Carollo's personal life is increasingly filled with questions and uncertainty, but as Carollo pushes through the miles he discovers the enduring forces and relationships he needs to keep moving forward. 

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Kevin Carollo has taught world literature and writing at Minnesota State University Moorhead for nineteen years. He received his doctorate in comparative literature from the University of Illinois—Urbana-Champaign and is author of a chapbook of poetry about early onset dementia. His poems have appeared in Conduit, Cream City Review, Ellipsis, RHINO, Thin Air, Little Patuxent Review, The New Guard, and elsewhere. He ran his first marathon shortly after turning twelve years old and completed his sixth Boston Marathon on April 18th, 2022. He lives, writes, and runs in Fargo, North Dakota.

 

"Kevin Carollo's SHRED! Running and Being is a cleverly composed hybrid memoir that desires to 'awaken empathy' in his readers and their communities. Set during the COVID-19 pandemic, Carollo's rich prose and theory, long-distance athletics, the environment, the body, and the sociopolitical climate. In SHRED! Running and Being, Carollo asks readers to (un)learn, to question, and to consider alongside him as he runs and as he writes, two practices that are, in fact, complementary in theiry efforts to wrestle with our human existence. Evocative and compelling, Carollo's words remind readers: If we are willing, it is indeed feasible for 'the trappings of so-called normal human commerce [to] fall away, and a different kind of communing [to] com[e] into play.'"
—Tara Ballard, author of House of the Night Watch

 

"In SHRED! Running and Being, Kevin Carollo boldy shreds the conventions of memoir to create a dynamic hybrid narrative that captures our frantic and fragmented times, while also showing us how to keep going when you reach the point in a marathon where you can't go on, and how to find 'fellow shredders' to 'help each other get to the finish line.' Carollo's vivid kinetic style and cynical wisdom guide us on a harrowing, but ultimately heartening, trip into "the heart of the heart of shred.'"
—Elizabeth Searle, author of We got Him and I'll show You Mine

 

ISBN: 978-1-946163-53-0

Page Count: 222

Paperback

Publication Date: May 1, 2024

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