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About

Karen Quickley is a North American poet with plans to return to her creative roots and venture into playwriting. Her 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 TulipTree Publishing's Stories that Need to be Told anthology. Outside of the States, her 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. She has pieces forthcoming in Wyldcraft Literary Journal, Academy of the Heart and Mind, The Wise Owl, and DarkWinter Magazine. In 2019, Adelaide nominated her poem "Sunflowers in August" Best Poem Finalist in one of their contests.

 

Her 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 her college poem "Little Brown Girl" in a 2023 contest, and The Dawn Review nominated her early poem "Safely Tonight, or Every Woman's Blues" for the 2023 Best of the Net Anthology. Additionally, New Feathers Anthology designated her college poem "The Phone Call" first runner up for their award last year.

 

Karen holds a B.A. in Creative Writing with a minor in World Literature from Western Michigan University, where she studied with Nancy Eimers, Jaimy Gordon, and Mark Halliday. She owes much of her literary life to her high school Language Arts instructor, Louise Garcia Harrison; however, scholar, writer, and poet Mark Richardson was her first literature professor. Louise gave the key, and Mark opened the door.

 

Like the poet Theodore Roethke, she was born and reared in Saginaw, Michigan. She spent much of her 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 her life, she has also lived in San Francisco. Now she and her two pussycats reside in the Cleveland, Ohio area.

 

The Dawn Review recently questioned Karen about her poem "Safely Tonight, or Every Woman's Blues." Read the blog article here. Peruse her new nterview in The Looking Glass Review right here. She keeps a diary of her literary life on Substack and invites you to explore it here. Read her first published essay here.