Kirsten Ogden

Kirsten Ogden likes the noncontinental United States. She grew up in Hawai'i and has also lived in Alaska (three years in a cabin with an outhouse and no running water). After studying for her PhD in Louisiana, where her grandparents and father lived, she has made California her home.

Kirsten works in multiple genres. Her essays, stories, and poems have been published most recently in Louisiana Literature, Anderbo, and Fringe Magazine; she was a featured poet for the Poets for Living Waters project in response to the Gulf oil spill. Kirsten's plays and screenplays have been honored with staged readings and full productions at numerous community and university theaters.

A writing teacher for over fifteen years, Kirsten is a passionate advocate for arts education in K-12. She is an alumna of Teach for America and continues to work with the California Poets in the Schools project. Every summer finds her in the scenic village of Gambier, Ohio, where, as an instructor for the Kenyon Review Young Writers Workshop, she inspires, flogs, and ignites young minds. What fun! Her whip is still cracking after seven years. She is an occasional blogger for Kenyon Review Online and The Blog @ CPITS. You can find her on the web at EatThePaper.com.

Kirsten Ogden