About the Author
Born in the Republic of Panama in 1979, Karen Rigby now lives and writes in Arizona. Her latest poetry book, Fabulosa, is forthcoming from JackLeg Press in 2024. Her debut poetry book, Chinoiserie (Ahsahta Press, 2012), was selected by Paul Hoover for a 2011 Sawtooth Poetry Prize, and described by Booklist as “poignant, powerful, and urgent.”
Karen’s work has been honored by a National Endowment for the Arts literature fellowship, a Vermont Studio Center Fellowship, and an Artist Opportunity Grant from the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council. She is a 2023 recipient of an Artist Opportunity Grant from the Arizona Commission on the Arts. Her poetry is published in journals such as The London Magazine, Poetry Northwest, The Oxonian Review, and Australian Book Review.
She’s read at venues including Rice University, Saint Vincent College, and the Tucson Festival of Books, and recently served as a Season 18 AWP Writer to Writer Mentor. A graduate of Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, Karen freelances as a book reviewer.
Recent Work
Read a Poetry Northwest interview on Danika Stegeman’s Ablation.
Book News
Fabulosa out from JackLeg Press this June.
ARIZONA BOOKSELLERS: Bright Side Bookshop | Changing Hands
Palabras Bilingual Bookstore | Peregrine Book Company | Stacks Book Club
PRE-ORDER: Open Books | Bookshop | Barnes & Noble | Powell‘s
REVIEWERS: request via Edelweiss
2024
EVENTS
1/
Excited Utterance
6/5/24, 6:00 p.m. MST
Quarterly Reading Series
Remote via StreamYard
w/ Larry O. Dean, T.R. Hummer
2/
Tucson Arts
Poetry Series
6/22/24, 3:30-5:00 p.m.
Tucson Desert Art Museum
w/ Sharon Suzuki-Martinez
4/
Fabulous Blues
8/10/24, 3:30 p.m.
Palabras Bilingual Bookstore
Phoenix, Arizona | Flyer
w/ Sharon Suzuki-Martinez
5/
In Conversation
8/20/24, 7:30 p.m. EST
The Notebooks Collective
Virtual details to come
w/ Danika Stegeman
6/
Visiting Writers Series
10/16/24, 5:00 p.m. MST
Otis College of Art & Design
Virtual details to come
2025
EVENTS
7/
Poetry Reading
3/11/25 | 6:30 p.m.
Up Up Books
Portland, Oregon
w/ Brittney Corrigan, Genevieve DeGuzman