So happy to meet you.

Hi everyone, and welcome! My name is Cornelia Powers, and I am a Washington, D.C.-based writer whose work has been featured in Harper’s Bazaar, ELLE, TIME, New York Magazine, Literary Hub, The Washington Post, Refinery 29, Electric Literature, Image Journal, the Princeton Alumni Weekly, Comment, and more.

After graduating Princeton with a degree in public policy and international relations, I worked as a researcher for the ONE Campaign, co-authoring the organization’s annual World AIDS Day Report, and later as a policy analyst for Medicaid. But when my beloved grandmother passed away suddenly in 2016, my world turned completely upside down. As a way to remain close to her, I stopped drinking and started writing. And soon, I started working on a book about Bessie Anthony — the winner of the 1903 women’s national championship for golf and the grandmother my grandmother never knew. Over the past eight years, I have worked to unearth the healing magic of Bessie’s story, sculpting out of my family’s archive an epic of love, womanhood, and family as well as a profoundly personal love letter to the ancestors I feel blessed to call my own.

In the spring of 2019, I married my wonderful husband, Tim. When we’re not playing with our daughter Kathleen (“Kit”) or our eighty-pound Golden Retriever, Birdie, we enjoy watching movies (and Bravo!), traveling, running, hiking, and — of course — playing golf. I love gardening, theology, classic movies, indie bookstores, and small New England towns and am a sucker for all things related to Audrey Hepburn, Jane Austen, and C.S. Lewis.

Other than here, you can find me at Instagram (@corneliapowerswrites) as well as my new Substack, LINKAGE (for past issues of my newsletter prior to Fall 2024, please click here).