about

A writer & book artist, Kristy Bowen lives in Chicago, where she creates a variety of hybrid works and experiments that enfold text, collage, printmaking, painting, zines, installation, performance, film, and more. She is the author of numerous books, chapbooks, zines, and artists books, including CLOVEN, a new collection of poems and collages centered around the Greek figure of Iphigenia.  For the past two decades, she's blogged about writing, art, horror films, thrifting, and other miscellany at DULCETLY: NOTES ON A BOOKISH LIFE. She also runs DANCING GIRL PRESS & STUDIO, where she makes and sells all manner of art, books, paper goods and accessories.  Raised in the wilds of northern Illinois, she inhabits a beautiful, but drafty, art deco building near the lake with several mongrel cats, her husband, too many books, and a vast collection of thrifted finds--only some of which are haunted. 

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A storyteller whose multi-genre work often delves into gothicism, surrealism, the speculative, and the delightfully strange, Bowen issues a regular series of chapbooks, zines, artists' books and video poetry blending text and image. She is the author of sixteen poetry books, including the recent WILD(ISH) and RUINPORN. Other recent collections include COLLAPSOLOGIES, AUTOMAGIC, ANIMAL VEGETABLE MONSTER, DARK COUNTRY, FEED (all self-issued) and SEX & VIOLENCE (Black Lawrence Press, 2020).  She is also the author of a hybrid text/image series devoted to the idea of the female epic that consists of two volumes , GRANATA, a darkly sensuous retelling of the Persephone myth, and CLOVEN, a journey through the eyes of the tragically doomed daughter of Agamemnon, Iphigenia. 

Bowen's writing and art has recently appeared in The Morgue, Grimoire, and Marrow Magazine.  A poem, "house of strays," appeared in the Academy of American Poets' Poem-A Day:365 Poems for Every Occasion anthology. Bowen has read and exhibited her work in a number of galleries, bars, cafes, conferences, academic institutions, and other venues, including the Field Museum of Natural History and the Poetry Foundation. She occasionally facilitates public and private workshops in zine making, bookwrecking, and other paper arts. 

Bowen has also created content for a number of publications and websites about design, decor, and DIY. Articles on everything from horror movies and home improvement to antique ephemera and architecture have appeared at Classpop!, House Digest, Cozymeal, E-How, Homes.com, Worthpoint, Study.com, Thriftcon, GameRant, and others. 

Since 2004, she has curated a long-running chapbook series devoted to women writers available through DANCING GIRL PRESS & STUDIO. From 2001-2015, she founded/edited the online lit zine wicked alice.  At Columbia College, she was co-founder of The Aesthetics of Research project (2014-2021) that fostered connections between artmaking and libraries through programming, art exhibits, and resource -building across multiple art mediums. 

She holds graduate degrees in literature (MA) and creative writing (MFA) from DePaul University and Columbia College Chicago.