Kyle Semmel joined the CDI team in 2011. Previously, he was the publication and communications manager of The Writer's Center (TWC) in Bethesda. His duties included developing marketing campaigns, writing and editing promotional materials, planning and steering programming (including long-term programming). He was the driving force behind TWC's Undiscovered Voices Scholarship, which provides one writer earning less than $25,000 annually the opportunity to take creative writing workshops at the Center for one year.

Kyle received his B.A. in History from Edinboro University. He also holds an M.A. in English from Kansas State University. A writer and translator, Kyle's work has appeared in Ontario Review, The Washington Post, The Writer's Chronicle, World Literature Today, Best European Fiction 2011, and elsewhere. He had translated Danish authors Pia Tafdrup, Peter Adolphsen, Jytte Borberg, and Simon Fruelund. His translation of Norwegian crime novelist Karin Fossum's latest novel, The Caller, was published in the UK in 2011. In 2012, his translation of Danish novelist Jussi Adler Olsen's next Department Q novel, Disgrace, will be published.

Kyle has received translation grants from the Danish Arts Council, and is a member of the American Literary Translator's Association.