About
I am Karen Quickley, a North American poet with plans to venture into drama and children's literature. My poetry has been featured in Adelaide Literary Magazine, Bi Women Quarterly, The Looking Glass Review, Encore Magazine, Northwest Indiana Literary Journal, October Hill Magazine, New English Review, and Wyldcraft Literary Journal. Outside of the States, my work has appeared in Canadian journals Halcyon Days and Founder's Favourites; U.K.-based Steel Jackdaw and t'ART; and Ireland's The Galway Review. I have pieces forthcoming in Academy of the Heart and Mind, The Wise Owl, and DarkWinter Magazine. In 2019, Adelaide nominated my poem "Sunflowers in August" Best Poem Finalist in one of their contests. At the end of 2024, I published my first chapbook of poetry, "The Beautiful Thing." It's made up of ekphrastic pieces on the a theme of romantic love.
My early poetry has appeared in Rat's Ass Review, The Dawn Review, New Feathers Anthology, Hare's Paw Literary Journal, 100 Subtexts Magazine, and Poetry Super Highway. Folly Journal (New Zealand) longlisted my college poem "Little Brown Girl" in a 2023 contest, and The Dawn Review nominated my early poem "Safely Tonight, or Every Woman's Blues" for the 2023 Best of the Net Anthology. Additionally, New Feathers Anthology designated my college poem "The Phone Call" first runner up for their award last year.
I hold a B.A. in Creative Writing with a minor in World Literature from Western Michigan University, where I studied with Nancy Eimers, Jaimy Gordon, and Mark Halliday. I owe much of my literary life to my high school Language Arts instructor, Louise Garcia Harrison; however, scholar, writer, and poet Mark Richardson was my first literature professor. Louise gave the key, and Mark opened the door.
Like the poet Theodore Roethke, I was born and reared in Saginaw, Michigan. I spent much of my adolescence in the dressing and green rooms and wings (and on the stage) of Pit and Balcony, Saginaw's community theater. A Michigander for most of my life, I have also lived in San Francisco. Now my two pussycats and I reside in the Cleveland, Ohio area.