Jigsaw Puzzling

Denise Low, Kansas Poet Laureate 2007-09, is winner of the Red Mountain Press Editor's Choice Award for Shadow Light. Other creative books are a memoir, The Turtle's Beating Heart: One Family's Story of Lenape Survival (University of Nebraska Press, 2017) Wing (Red Mountain, 2021), and A Casino Bestiary: Poems (Spartan Press). Wing (Red Mountain, 2021), poems, is a Hefner Heitz finalist. Her Jackalope (Red Mountain, 2014), fiction, was acclaimed by American Book Review, Pennyless (U.K.), and New Letters. She edited a selection of poems by William Stafford with essays by other poets and scholars, Kansas Poems of William Stafford (Woodley). With Ramon Powers she co-authored Northern Cheyenne Ledger Art by Fort Robinson Breakout Survivors (University of Nebraska Press, 2020), a Kansas Notable Book. She is a founding board member of Indigenous Native Poets (In-Na-Po), which sponsors retreats for emerging poets, including a 2022 celebration of U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo at the Library of Congress. She founded the Creative Writing Program at Haskell Indian Nations University, where she taught and was an administrator. Low is past board president of the Associated Writers and Writing Programs. She has won recognition from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Sequoyah National Research Center, Poetry Society of America, The Circle -Best Native American Books, Roberts Foundation, Lichtor Award, and the Kansas Arts Commission. Low has an MFA from Wichita State U. and Ph.D. from Kansas U. She teaches for Baker University's School of Professional and Graduate Studies. Her blog Denise Low Postings [deniselow.blogspot.com] has been active since 2006 and has over 300,000 views. She recently relocated to Sonoma County, California, and lives and puzzles on Tsuno Mountain.