About

Here's the resume stuff. After earning a degree in English and communication with a minor in journalism, the few poems I slipped into my journalistic portfolio actually nabbed me my first professional writing job -- as a scriptwriter. After a long career as a journalist, public relations executive, educator, and small business owner, I rededicated myself to poetry. More than 60 of my poems have been published in a variety of literary journals including:  Bramble, Sheltering with Poems, Poised In Flight: An Anthology, Midwest Quarterly, Midwest Prairie Review, Reed, and Verse Wisconsin. I've read my poems in Australia, New York, Oregon, Vermont, and Wisconsin. Awards include the following:

*   "Transference won first place in the 2024 Wisconsin Fellowship of Poetry Muse Contest 
*   A collection of five poems won Honorable Mention with the Council of Wisconsin Writers' 2022 Lorine Niedecker Poetry Award.
*  "My First Orgasm" won second place in the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poetry Triad Contest.
*  "On Shawano Lake," won first prize at the Writers' Institute of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
*  "American Mother" was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. 
*  "Barkeep's Morning" received an honorable mention from the Wisconsin Writers Association Jade Ring Contest.

Random Basketball photos

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Mamu and me (in the yellow sweater) at the 2022 scrimmage. Photo courtesy of the Bucks' app.
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Toddler me in Memphis, Tennessee. Is that a basketball I'm holding? Just sayin'.
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A Kaukauna High School yearbook photo (1973 I think) of our inaugural JV girls' basketball team. Me: Middle row far right.

Random published Poetry

"Fluid Dynamics" appeared in 2021's Sheltering with Poems. I also read it for Art + Lit Lab's July 2021 Virtual Watershed Reading. Here's a link to the entire reading (I'm the second poet to read at about 7:50 on the timeline):  https://fb.watch/v/2-kjpoF0b/ And here's a link to an article about the anthology in The Capitol Times: https://tinyurl.com/86mnzpc4
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Poem in new Ariel Anthology. A virtual reading was held November 2021 to honor the issue. Two water walkers from the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa led off the event and Dasha Kelly Hamilton, Wisconsin's Poet Laureate, closed it. Wonderful!
I'm thrilled to have won an Honorable Mention with the Council of Wisconsin Writers' 2022 Lorine Niedecker Poetry Award. The award is given to the best collection of up to five poems published in literary magazines by a Wisconsin-based writer in the previous year. And it came with a one-week residency at the Painted Forest. 

Selected works on-line


http://www.versewisconsin.org/Issue112/poems/keller.html

http://www.booksbywomen.org/whenwomenwaken/author/lorakeller/

http://lanternjournal.org/2013/03/please-stand-back/

ttp://original-writer.com/gettingpoetrypublished56lora.html

http://www.halfwaydownthestairs.net/index.php?action=view&id=411

http://www.thenewpoet.com/2013/05/the-new-poet-5.html

http://www.blastfurnacepress.com/2012/11/blast-furnace-volume-2-issue-3.html

http://www.med-lit.vcu.edu/MLM2.2.pdf