she/her
Karen vanMeenen spearheaded Writers & Books’ Rochester Reads program, 2001 – 2019, and continues to lead selected community reading projects. She is a senior lecturer at Rochester Institute of Technology, teaching courses in Writing, Literature, and Contemporary Media Art. Editor of the media arts journal Afterimage for over 25 years, she also edited the collections Giving Sorrow Words: Poems of Strength and Solace; Light At the End: Poems by Lyn Lifshin; and Nevermore: Poetry and Prose by Edgar Allan Poe. She is certified as a writing therapist and serves on the executive board of the National Association for Poetry Therapy and as the Book Reviews Editor for the Journal of Poetry Therapy. Karen has Master of Arts degrees in Transformative Language Arts and in Media Studies, and is completing a PhD program in Philosophy, Art & Critical Thought at the European Graduate School.