Karen Quickley

I am Karen Quickley, an emerging North American poet. My poetry has been featured in The Ibis Head Review, Adelaide Literary Magazine, Bi Women Quarterly, The Looking Glass Review, Encore Magazine, Northwest Indiana Literary Journal, October Hill Magazine, New English Review, Wyldcraft Literary Journal, Academy of the Heart and Mind, The Wise Owl, and DarkWinter Magazine. My recent work has also appeared in Canadian journals Halcyon Days and Founder's Favourites; U.K.-based Steel Jackdaw and t'ART; and Ireland's The Galway Review. In December, I finally published my first chapbook of poetry "The Beautiful Thing" (KDP 2024). It's available as an ebook at Amazon, and I hope that you enjoy it. This body of work on a theme of romantic love is imaginative, whimsical, lighthearted, and ekphrastic.

My early poetry (1993-1998) has been featured 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 in 2023.

I hold a B.A. in Creative Writing with a minor in World Literature from Western Michigan University, where I had the pleasure of studying 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 grew up 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 enjoy living close to Lake Erie in the Cleveland, Ohio area.