CONTACT ❧
Email checked regularly at mwkarraker(at)gmail.com
BIO ❧
I write, perform, and am currently based in Minneapolis. I am interested in how embodied experience can be explored through language, improvisation, and collaboration. I compose scores, practice the viola, take field recordings, and seek play. I also facilitate generative writing workshops on an occasional basis.
CV ❧
EDUCATION
2018 MFA Creative Writing with Graduate Art Minor, University of Minnesota
2015 BA Religious Studies and French, Lewis & Clark College
HONORS + AWARDS
2018 McKnight Fellowship in Poetry, Honorable Mention
2018 Lighthouse Works Residency Fellowship
2017 James Wright Prize from The Academy of American Poets
2017 Michael Dennis Browne Fellowship in Poetry, University of Minnesota
2017 College of Liberal Arts Research Travel Grant, University of Minnesota
2016 Marcella DeBourg Grant, University of Minnesota
2016 Iowa Review Poetry Prize Semifinalist
2015 Black Warrior Review Poetry Prize Finalist
RESIDENCIES + WORKSHOPS
2020 The American Institute of Thoughts and Feelings - Tucson, AZ (March)
2019 Coffee House Press In the Stacks Residency - Minneapolis, MN (September-December)
2019 Pancake House Radial Residency, m o t e - Minneapolis, MN with Cole Pulice (June-August)
2018 Lighthouse Works - Fishers Island, NY (May-June)
2017 The White Page Gallery - Minneapolis, MN (May-September)
2016 Ashbery Home School - Hudson, NY (August)
PUBLICATIONS
Chapbook
2017 WORKS ON PAPER OR WITHOUT. Minneapolis, MN: QXIZ Editions.
Selected poetry and fiction
2019 “Arrival Sonnet, after Travis McEwen.” Queer Forms (catalogue), Katherine Nash Gallery, University of Minnesota Print.
“both ode and elegy: Two poems for Isa Gagarin’s Color in Motu.” Forage Modern Workshop. Print.
2018 “Three untitled poems, after Sheila Wagner,” Hair and Nails Zine # 14. Print.
“Savory Dinner.” poets.org. Web.
“keeps watch: poems after Jennifer Nevitt’s Sans Terre.” MnArtists. Web.
2017 “six events” fLoromancy. Web.
“cave speak” collaboration with Prairie M. Faul. Tagvverk. Web.
“i.” Gulf Coast 30.1. Print.
“ii,” “iv,” and “v.” Gigantic Sequins 8.2. Print.
“autoportrait as cyborg in device,” “autoportrait as cyborg in transit,” “autoportrait as cyborg in pain,”
“autoportrait as cyborg in costume.” Indiana Review (special folio: Metallic Grit). Print.
“on my avoidance while ill, reply all.” Bedfellows issue 6. Print.
“synthesis/i never said i had to make up my mind ∞” and “tonic (tourmaline).” FERROFLUID. Web.
2016 “Attempts at Intimacy, Renderings.” BOAAT. Web.
“real girl, idyll,” “blur(s),” and “haibun: in + out of devices.” Tagvverk. Web.
Selected critical writing and essays
2019 Blog posts for In the Stacks Residency, Coffee House Press. Web.
2017 “Review: Mara Duvra's To Allow For Breath.” INREVIEW (winter). Print.
“Renee Gladman’s Prose Architectures: Creative Practice Reoriented as Threshold.” Kenyon Review Online. Web.
“Enfermario - Gabriela Torres Olivares.” Lambda Literary. Web.
“Review: Violet Energy Ingots—Hoa Nguyen.” Full Stop. Web.
“On MACRO.” DIAGRAM Issue 16.6. Web.
2016 “Brenda Iijima and Her Energies.” DIAGRAM Issue 16.3. Web.
“Review: Gap Gardening— Rosemarie Waldrop.” 3AM Magazine. Web.
“Review: Cries for Help, Various— Padgett Powell.” Full Stop. Web.
CURATORIAL / EDITORIAL
2019-Present Futurepoem, open submissions reader.
2018-Present TAGVVERK - I edit the online magazine alongside Barrett White.
2018 POND - Artists respond to a set of strict constraints. Best viewed on desktop. Theo Ellin Ballew constructed the site. Includes original works by Sophie Durbin, Mara Duvra, Annika Berry, Gunnar Tchida, Mary Lodu, and Jonathan Kaiser.
2015-2017 Curator, Mill City Reading Series (University of Minnesota Creative Writing Program).
READINGS, PERFORMANCES, PANELS, EXHIBITIONS (abbreviated due to space)
2020 Performance with Tine Net, Drone Not Drones, Cedar Cultural Center, February 1)
Reader for HARD TO READ presents REVOLUTIONARY LETTERS (Montez Press HQ, New York, NY, January 29)
Facilitator and curator for Participation Required: Archives, Nicollet Mall, and Collaboration for Coffee House
Press’ In the Stacks Residency (Central Library, Minneapolis, January, 18)
2019 m o t e (solo) performance for In Situ (Moon Palace Books, Minneapolis, December 6)
Panelist for Listening to Space for In Situ (Pancake House, Minneapolis, December 5)
m o t e (solo) performance with the comissioned “We Move Still (Blue)” by April Martin and Jordan Rosenow (First and First, Minneapolis, October 17)
m o t e performance for FD13’s season launch, (Peavey Plaza, Minneapolis, September 14)
Performance and reading (Goethe in the Skyways, as part of Hanne Lippard’s Inefficiencies, April 5).
m o t e (with Cole Pulice) performance, (Drone Not Drones, Cedar Cultural Center, February)
2018 Group Exhibition including Works on Paper or Without (Conceptual Drawing Studio, Portland, OR, June)
Performance of TOPOS (Spoonbill Montrose, Brooklyn, NY, March)
Performance of TOPOS (Picture Room, New York, NY, February)
Featured reading and performance (Yeah Maybe, Minneapolis, MN, Janurary)
Reading with Zoe Bresney and Adrienne Herr (Codex Books, New York, NY, March)
Performance with Six Families (Drone Not Drones, Cedar Cultural Center, February)
2017 Performance and exhibition WORKS ON PAPER OR WITHOUT (Mirrorlab Studios, Minneapolis, October)
Panelist for Inside Out (The White Page, Minneapolis, November)
Reading with Lara Mimosa Montes and Moheb Soliman (555 Reading Series, Minneapolis, July)
Performance with Six Families (Jazz Central, Minneapolis, 17 December.
Performance with Patrick Marschke and J.P. Merz for the group exhibition One Day After, One Year Later, (Yeah Maybe, Minneapolis, 21 January)
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
2019 Instructor, Field Experience #9: Fermentation, a two-day workshop co-taught with Anaïs Hazo, Bodega, October 12 and 13.
Instructor, Broccoli Workshop, Playtimers, Minneapolis, May 24.
2018 Instructor, Multisensory Drawing and Writing Workshop, Pancake House, Minneapolis, February 24.
2018 Teaching Artist, Cut-n-Paste Poems, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, April 7.
2017 Instructor, Multisensory Drawing and Writing Workshop, The White Page, Minneapolis, July 23.
Instructor, Ekphrasis Workshop, The White Page, Minneapolis, June 11.
2015-2018 Instructor and graduate teaching assistant, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.
[Courses taught: Multicultural Literature in the United States, Introduction to Creative Writing, Introduction to Poetry and Poetry Writing, Intermediate Fiction, Rhetoric and Composition.]