Karen Benke

Karen (Karena) Benke is the founder of The Writer’s Nest, a creative literacy mentorship program for children and teenagers. She writes and publishes The Museletter, with a readership of more than two thousand internationally, and is a former Poet in the Schools. She has presented her creative writing adventures program to thousands of children in hundreds of public and private schools, bookstores, libraries, and conferences, and read for the Library of Congress’s Lunchtime Poetry Series. Her poetry has appeared in anthologies and national literary journals (Ploughshares, Poetry Daily, Rattle, Hawaii Pacific Review, Poetry East), and her books have been featured in FamilyFun magazine, San Francisco Book Review, Kids’ Book Review, the Toronto Star, Guernica Magazine, and more. The recipient of two teaching grants from Poets & Writers and writing residencies from Djerassi Resident Artists Program, Hedgebrook, Numeroventi Design Center (Italy), and The Moth (Ireland), she is co-author with Matilde Pettini of Lunch at Lola’s (Rizzoli, 2027) about the rising star’s trattoria, Dalla Lola, that was featured on National Geographic’s Tucci in Italy. She divides her time between the San Francisco Bay Area and Florence, Italy, where she is always at work on a creative project. Visit her virtually at www.karenbenke.com.

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