Kari Gunter-Seymour blames her method of writing on the rich Appalachian Ohio soil, her wildly eclectic family and neighbors and her upbringing. She holds a B.F.A. in graphic design and an M.A. in commercial photography and is an instructor in the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University. She is the Poet Laureate of Athens, Ohio.Her chapbook “Serving” is available from Crisis Chronicles Press and Amazon.com. Her poetry appears in several publications including, Rattle, Crab Orchard Review, Main Street Rag, Stirring CALYX, The American Journal of Poetry and The LA Times. Her pieces “I Knew Bad New Had Come,” "Middle East Veteran's Wife" and “Serving” were nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She is the first-place winner of Still: The Journal's 2018 Literary Contest, the 2018 Hocking Hills Poetry Festival competition and the 2017 National Federation of State Poetry Societies BlackBerryPeach Spoken and Heard Competition, a competition that challenges poets to present their original poetry in print and performance.Her award winning photography has been published nationally in The Sun Magazine, Rattle Ekphrastic, Light Journal, Looking at Appalachia, Storm Cellar Quarterly, Vine Leaves Journal and Appalachian Heritage Magazine. Kari is the founder/executive director of the “Women of Appalachia Project,” an arts organization she created to address discrimination directed at women from the Appalachian region by encouraging participation from women artists (fine art and spoken word) of diverse backgrounds, ages and experiences to come together, embrace the stereotype, show the whole woman; beyond the superficial factors people use to judge her. (www.womenofappalachia.com).Read more about this authorRead less about this author