Mendocino County Poet Karen Lewis

     On Thursday, October 18, at 7:30pm The Third Thursday Poetry & Jazz Reading Series at 215 Main in Point Arena will feature Albion poet Karen Lewis. The reading will begin with live improv jazz, followed by an open mic with jazz improv; the reading will conclude with our featured poet and more live improv jazz.

     Karen Lewis writes poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and uses hybrid forms. She’s widely published in journals and anthologies including most recently Mothering Through the Darkness and Minerva Rising. She also manages a blog Wordjourneys, and contributes to BookBrowse, a subscription literary review. She is currently working on a poetry collection.

     Karen has lived on four continents, traveled on six. Borders, migration, and diverse habitats are favorite themes in her work. She is interested in the spaces between here and there. Where ocean touches earth. Where sky touches mountain. Where “impossible” touches “maybe” and where the blank page turns into a character with a story.

     Karen grew up in Los Angeles and studied at UCLA, Mount Holyoke College, and Stanford University then earned an MFA from Antioch. Since 1995, she has been active with California Poets in the Schools, teaching K-12 hands-on creative writing workshops in Mendocino County. She is the recipient of six California Arts Council – Artists in Schools grants. She has also worked with the Arts Council of Mendocino County – Get Arts in Schools (GASP) project.  In addition, Karen develops curriculum to connect poetry, language arts, and English language learning with other topics like science, watershed, social studies, and math. She’s presented nationally on these topics.

     From 2014-16 Karen directed the Mendocino Coast Writers Conference, and remains on the advisory board.

     She is married to the artist-sculptor Will Lewis and lives in Albion. When not spending time writing, taking care of the family business, or exploring the outdoors with the family, Karen is passionate about farm-to-table cooking, and scavenging plastic from local beaches.