Kristen M. Hallows
Award Winning Librarian-Author
Stalled
Nominated for Publication of the Month August 2023
Spillwords Press
August 2023
One autumn afternoon in 2000, a Zenair CH 601 HDS strained upward from the Morehead-Rowan County Airport near Morehead, Kentucky. My father, the pilot, expressed genuine concern that we might not clear the rapidly-approaching treetops due to my exceptionally heavy bags; several stories in the air, it was an unsettling prospect ultimately rendered obsolete by a safe landing on a runway pressed into a flat expanse of central Ohio.
To continue reading, please visit https://spillwords.com/stalled.
Curation
Spillwords Press [originally accepted by Thuya Poetry Review (Issue II / Winter 2023)]
February 2024
First, a death. Then, the purge:
waves of purges, more accurately, sustained
by unpredictable reservoirs of human will.
To continue reading, please visit https://spillwords.com/curation.
2020
Why Flabby Is a Fine Adjective for 2020 and Beyond
Medium
I first encountered the word flabby used creatively in the Adam Smith, Esq. blog. I read Bruce MacEwen’s law firm commentary mainly for the quality and sparkle of the writing and, at the time, I thought it was a thoughtful use of a word typically confined to, at least in my experience, less-than-taut midsections. Naturally, all efforts to find the post have been unsuccessful, but I’m certain of the origin…
2019
Why Natural Doesn’t Always Equal Safe
Medium The Startup
In 2018, a 69-year-old man was admitted to a hospital in China. His complaints included lower limb weakness, unsteady gait, and muscle pain. He was found to have severe rhabdomyolysis, a potentially fatal type of myopathy (neuromuscular disorder) believed to be caused by statin (cholesterol-lowering drug) use. Over the previous decade, the patient had taken 40 mg of simvastatin every day…
The Country Doctor Who Cured Insanity
Medium Invisible Illness
“If you’re going to write about my work, you kids’d better know and tell right out what’s been bad about me,” Dr. John (Jack) Ferguson said in the spring of 1956 at the lakeside home of one of Michigan’s most celebrated medical writers, Dr. Paul de Kruif. The 29-acre estate’s wildflower namesake, the Wake Robin, bloomed as intensely as the apéritifs…
Your Creative Nonfiction Cravings Explained
Medium Future Vision
“I type inquiry into a search engine. In 0.36 seconds, I receive nearly 290 million results.”
These are the words of Professor Tom Liam Lynch in a punchy piece titled “Inquiry in an Age of Query,” but I could have written them myself, and you probably could have, too. Many of us have an almost identical experience daily — perhaps many times a day…
2018
Top Ten Winner of the 87th Annual Writer’s Digest Writing Competition in the Magazine Feature Article Category
Ragazine 14 (3)
Like a swift descent into cold water, Kyoshi Izumi’s first sensation was that of muscle tightness. Despite an acute astigmatism, titles of books 15 feet away were legible without glasses. A partial deafness in his left ear, a closed door, and a distance of 30 feet did nothing to diminish the sound of his Chihuahuas’ toenails clicking against the floor…
Truth as Corollary to Knowledge: The Impact of Sandra Marlow
Reflections: Narratives of Professional Helping 23 (3), 9-21
Sandra “Sunny” Marlow, fine artist and librarian, was the conduit through whom the public became aware of radiation experiments conducted on residents of the Walter E. Fernald State School. This exposition of Marlow’s fateful tenure at the institution selectively plumbs its historical and situational framework beginning with the toehold established by the eugenics movement in the early twentieth century. While librarians are not the only helping professionals well suited to the task of finding and revealing secrets with potentially shattering significance, their existence at the vanguard of information literacy and access to knowledge uniquely positions them to ensure that bygone events have a place in the public consciousness today…
2017
Finding Relevance In an Ever-Evolving Legal World
AALL Spectrum 22 (2), 21-24
You probably became desensitized long ago to the word “relevance,” the loss of which being a persistent bugaboo in the presence of relentless technological advancement. Furthermore, the word’s chronic misuse may allow a loose directive to cloud a well-articulated vision…
2016
Law Library Journal 108 (2), 308-310
Why can lawful actions be viewed as dubious while extralegal steps are heartily endorsed? This is precisely what Philip A. Wallach sets out to determine in his introduction to and survey of the divergence of law and legitimacy in times of crisis…
2014
Dialectic of Transformation: The Shaping of a Name*
Winner of the AALL Article of the Year Award
AALL Spectrum 18 (6), 11-14
Law librarianship, similar to other professions, emerged from humble beginnings. Christine A. Brock’s “Law Libraries and Librarians: A Revisionist History” (Law Library Journal, 1974) explained that the earliest academic law librarians were those whose only qualification was the willingness to accept a small salary: students, janitors, and old men…
It’s All Enumerative: Reconsidering Library of Congress Classification in U.S. Law Libraries
Winner of the AALL/LexisNexis Call for Papers Award
Law Library Journal 106 (1), 85-99
At its most basic level, the human impulse to classify emerges from our strong desire to know what to expect. New things that resemble familiar things need little or no further examination. Quite simply, “we know what to expect of a dog or a banana, since they are similar to dogs and bananas we already know…”
2013
Health Information Literacy and the Elderly: Has the Internet Had an Impact?
The Serials Librarian 65 (1), 39-55
The objective of the literature review was to determine whether the existence of the Internet has had a significant impact on health information literacy among the elderly in developed nations. Results were truly mixed, which led to the conclusion that, despite its worldwide acceptance and usage, the Internet has not had an all-encompassing influence on the ability of seniors to make informed health decisions, which is the ultimate product of good health information literacy…
*Co-authored with Christine Bowersox
Kristen M. Hallows | Author 