Karen Hand Ogg

Karen is an interdisciplinary artist. Her writing practice is a meld of poem and prose. Her forte is noticing. She archives emotional and geographic points in time and is riveted by her Presumpscot River surroundings. Nature, humanity, material culture and the cacophony of her internal call and response to impermanence fuel her work. Home holds her heart. Karen was a public school teacher, who retired for her soul in June of 2021 after thirty-eight years of giving it her all.

Her "Hometown" and “Guests” pieces were featured in the MEETINGHOUSE section of The Maine Sunday Telegram. Presently she is working on Orbiting Oz, a three-part hybrid memoir about teaching and learning, grief and relief, shelter and place. It is composed of prose, poem and visual lessons and stories.

Karen received three USM/L-A Instituting Poetry in the At-Risk Classroom Service Learning Grants (2004, 2006, 2009) and the 2016 National Education Association, Books Across America Library Implementation Grant for her students at Franklin/Merrill Hill Alternative School in Auburn, Maine. She was given a Dropout Prevention Award in 1999 by the Auburn School Department. Her visual art was featured in the 2002 Roger S. Goldstein Fund (Massachusetts General Hospital) Depression Awareness Calendar Project.