Kristin Bartley Lenz, LMSW, is a writer and social worker who has lived in Michigan, Georgia, and California. She has a B.A. in psychology from the University of Michigan and a MSW from Wayne State University in Detroit. 

Her rock-climbing adventures inspired her debut young adult novel, The Art of Holding On and Letting Go, which was a Helen Sheehan YA Book Prize winner, a Junior Library Guild Selection, and an honor book for the Great Lakes Great Books Award. Her work has been published in a YA poetry anthology (Rhyme & Rhythm: Poems for Student Athletes), The New York Times, Writer’s Digest, Lunch Ticket, Hunger Mountain, Michigan Reading Journal, Great Lakes Review, Literary Mama, Women On Writing, The New Social Worker, and more. 

She also writes freelance for Detroit area nonprofits, teaches creative writing for teens and adults, and escapes to the woods and lakes in northern Michigan whenever she can.

Represented by: Sera Rivers