Karen Benke

Karen Benke has been a life coach and creative writing guide for the young and young-at-heart since 1996. She is a California Poet in the Schools whose poems have been published in numerous anthologies and literary magazines, including Rattle, Ploughshares, Poetry East, Hawaii Pacific Review, Common Ground Review, Pilgrimage, Poetry Daily, and elsewhere. A recipient of grants and residences from Poets & Writers, the Marin Arts Council, Hedgebrook, and the Djerassi Foundation, she lives north of the Golden Gate Bridge with her family and a cat named Clive.

In this video, Karen introduces her new book—inspired by her students—Rip the Page!: Adventures in Creative Writing. The book includes wordplay, open-ended writing experiments, encouragement from writers and poets, and enough blank pages to let a child's words roam.