Kitty O’Meara

Kitty O’Meara is a lifelong writer and artist and a former teacher of middle school writing and literature. She also has been a hospital and hospice chaplain and is currently a spiritual director. And the People Stayed Home is her first print book and has been co-illustrated by Stefano Di Cristofaro and Paul Pereda. Stefano Di Cristofaro is an illustrator and designer. He has illustrated the children’s books Conejo y Conejo, Guachipira va de viaje, and La Sayona y otros cuentos de espantos. Paul Pereda is an illustrator who has primarily worked in video game development and trading card games with clients such as Disney, Nickelodeon, Atari, and MTV. In her poem about the pandemic, quarantine, and the future And the People Stayed Home (Tra Publishing) O’Meara suggests there is meaning to be found in our shared experience of the coronavirus. Moreover, she conveys an optimistic message about the possibility of profound healing for people and the planet.  Her words encourage us to look within, listen deeply, and connect with ourselves and the earth in order to heal. Her words, written in March 2020 and shared on Facebook, immediately resonated nationally and internationally and were widely circulated on social media, covered in mainstream news media, and inspired an outpouring of creativity from musicians, dancers, artists, filmmakers, and more. O, The Oprah Magazine, called O’Meara ” the poet laureate of the pandemic […] The poem has become shorthand for a silver-linings perspective during the coronavirus outbreak—the hope that something good can come out of this collective state of ‘together, apart.’