Karen Loeb joined the Department in 1988. Before that she taught at colleges in Florida and Chicago. She has an M.F.A. in creative writing, and while fiction writing is the form she is most active in, she has publications in poetry and non-fiction also. Her book Jump Rope Queen and Other Stories, was published by New Rivers Press after winning a Minnesota Voices Project Award. She has received Pen Syndicated Fiction awards and grants and fellowships from the Wisconsin Arts Board. In 2010 she gave a talk (“Chicago on My Mind”) on the influence Chicago has had on her writing and a reading for Women’s History Month.
Usually every semester she teaches creative writing (Introduction to Creative Writing, Intermediate Story Writing or Fiction Workshop), along with literature and composition classes. Her classes encourage, expect, and depend upon student participation. You can find a few of her short stories and poems
online at the following sites:
- The White Crow v5, i3 - "The Bamboo Inn"
- The Philosophical Mother essay: http://philosophicalmom.blogspot.com/2007/03/when-charlotte-xinyi-met-madeline.html
- Verbsap - "Border Skirmishes"
- Chest Journal v137, i2- “Kools in Chicago”
- Two poems Terra Cotta Typewriter http://www.tctype.com/?p=408
