Karen Carcia
I fell in love with letterpress-printed books when, as a teenager, I bought a beautifully designed volume of poems—the words had a real, physical presence on the page that matched the way I felt reading them. Trained as a poet at Indiana University and Western Michigan University, I went on to teach creative writing at Southeast Missouri State University. I soon realized I wanted to explore both the physicality of words and books and so I began my studies at the UICB.
I’m interested in all the different choices available to writers and artists—from traditional, small presses to the hand-produced artist’s books. My own work reflects this as I have a book with a traditional publisher (On Subjects of Which We Know Nothing, New Michigan Press, 2011), and have shown my artist’s books in many national juried shows. Currently, as well as teaching at the Center, I am the new mixed media editor of Prompt Press.