September 14, 2014, Sunday - Deborah Keenan and Susan Solomon at The Loft

Time: 2:00pm

Location: The Loft at Open Book (Performance Hall), 1011 Washington Ave S

Deborah Keenan and Susan Solomon

Join us in celebrating the launch of So She Had the World, a collaborative project between Deborah Keenan and Susan Solomon connecting the word and the visual with special guests Mary Kane, Dore Kiesselbach, Todd Pederson, and Paige Riehl. 

Deborah Keenan's latest books are From Tiger to Prayer (broadcraft press), So She Had the World (Red Bird Chapbooks) with paintings by Susan Solomon, and Willow Room, Green Door: New and Selected Poems (Milkweed Editions), the winner of a Minnesota Book Award for poetry. She's a full time professor in the MFA program at Hamline University, and has taught at The Loft every year for more than 30 years. Her new full-length manuscript is called The Saint of Everything. She lives in beautiful, mysterious Saint Paul.

Susan Solomon is a freelance painter living in the Twin Cities. She is a graduate of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the same school that claims David Lynch as a former student. Susan is the editor and cartoonist for Sleet Magazine. She loves collaborating with poets, more than almost anything, because they know stuff.

Mary Kane works as a marketing manager and enjoys volunteering for city parks, eating chocolate for breakfast, and talking with strangers. Originally from Texas, she was raised in the home of the Buffalo Chicken Wing and has spent her adult life enjoying Minneapolis. In 2012, she earned an MFA from Hamline University. Her poetry has appeared in Murphy Square, Kaleidoscope, Burner Magazine, OVS Magazine, Sleet Magazine, and the Vermillion Literary Project Magazine.

Dore Kiesselbach’s first collection, Salt Pier (Pittsburgh, 2012), won the Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize. Other honors include a Javits Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Britain’s Bridport Prize, and the Poetry Society of America’s 2014 Robert Winner Memorial Award. His work has appeared in many magazines, including Agni Online, Antioch Review, Poetry, and Field.

Todd Pederson holds an MFA degree from Hamline University.  He works with Nate Thomas and Susan Solomon as a poetry editor for the online literary journal, Sleet Magazine. Todd lives in Eden Prairie with his wife and two children, whom he thanks for their patience and inspiration.

Paige Riehl’s poetry chapbook Blood Ties was published by Finishing Line Press in 2014. Her poetry has been published in Meridian, Potomac Review, South Dakota Review, Nimrod International Journal, and other journals. She won the 2012–2013 Loft Mentor Series in Poetry and the 2011 Literal Latte Prize for Poetry. She was also a semi-finalist for the 2011 Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry. She teaches creative writing, composition, and literature at Anoka-Ramsey Community College, where she is also the chair of the Two Rivers Reading Series Committee.