Mendy Knott

Mendy Knott, Hill Poet standing relaxed against an outside wooden gate

Mendy Knott describes herself as a “Southern preacher’s kid.” Estranged from her family when she came out at age nineteen, she reunited with them in 2005.

After four years in the U.S. Air Force, and eight years as a police officer in Atlanta, Georgia, Mendy moved to Asheville, North Carolina, where she began working at Malaprop’s Bookstore. There, she ran a monthly women’s open mic, A CafĂ© of Our Own from 1993 to 2001. In the basement of that bookstore, she also ran an uncensored version of open mic called Down and Dirty.

Mendy Knott’s book of poetry, A Little Lazarus, came out in 2010. She has continued to run women’s open mic groups in North Carolina and in Fayetteville, Arkansas, where she lived from 2005 to 2013. She lived in Burnsville, North Carolina, where  at the local coffee shop, she ran an open mic called Poets Under the Maples. For the first time, she let everyone read, regardless of gender.

Mendy Knott’s poem, “In My Dreams,” written for Martin Luther King Day, was put to music and performed by Womansong, Asheville’s women’s chorus, in 1999.

See also:

Creation Stories by MKnott on Substack