Ania Payne

Ania Payne is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English at Kansas State University. She specializes in Creative Writing, Technical and Professional Writing, Composition and Rhetoric, and Community Writing. Her work emphasizes nonfiction and community engagement, particularly through appreciative-inquiry approaches and community-based learning.

Education: M.F.A., 2016, Northern Michigan University.

Research focuses on creative nonfiction essays and community writing projects, including her chapbook Karma Animalia (2022), which won the Social Justice Anthologies’ Prose Chapbook Competition. Her creative works have been published in Bending Genres, The Rumpus, and other journals.

Awards include the Engagement Scholarship Consortium Grant (2023) for her project on community asset mapping and the K-State English Department’s Excellence in Teaching Award (2020). She also served as a King/Chávez/Parks fellow (2015–2016).

Her current initiatives include a community writing project using front porch conversations to map local assets, blending academic research with community engagement.