As a child, Karen Benke loved to disguise herself, search for lost treasure, and hide notes for her family and friends as she spied while her words were found. Flash forward 30+ years and she’s still in love with arranging words on a page and surprising herself and others while leading workshops with California Poets in the Schools and Creative Writing Circles in bookstores, libraries, and around her dining room table. She received her M.A. in Writing from the University of San Francisco where she studied with Jane Hirshfield, and her B.A. in English / Creative Writing from California State University, Chico. Her poems have been published in anthologies and literary magazines, including Ploughshares, Poetry East, Rockhurst Review, Clackamas Literary Review, Heartlodge, Pilgrimage, Common Ground Review, Poetry Daily and elsewhere. A recipient of grants and residencies from the Marin Arts Council Fund For Artists, Hedgebrook, and Djerassi Resident Artists Program, she lives north of the Golden Gate Bridge with her husband, Owen Prell, a screenwriter and arts attorney, their nine year-old son, and a cat named Clive.
The author of RIP THE PAGE! Adventures in Creative Writing Trumpeter/Shambhala, 2010 and SISTER Conflu:X Press, 2004, Karen Benke is a California Poet in the Schools and Creative Writing Guide for kids and kids-at-heart.