Denise (Dotson) Low is 2008-2013 member the national board of AWP and former president; she is a founding member of Indigenous Nations Poets. From 2007-2009 Low was Kansas Poet Laureate. She has 25+ published books of poetry, personal essays, and scholarship. Forthcoming in 2024 is House of Grace, House of Blook (University of Arizona Press, Suntracks), and personal essays are in Jigsaw Puzzling (Meadowlark Press). Her poetry books include Casino Bestiary (Spartan, 2020); Wing (Red Mountain) and Shadow Light (Red Mountain). Short fiction is Jackalope Walks into an Indian Bar (2016). Her previous books have won recognition from the state of Kansas, Circle Magazine (Minneapolis) and the Kansas City Star. She has been visiting professor of creative writing at the University of Richmond and the University of Kansas. At Haskell Indian Nations University, she founded the creative writing program. Currently, she teaches courses for Baker University as well as independent creative writing workshops, some online. She has awards from the NEH, Lannan Foundation, The Newberry Library, Academy of American Poets, Kanas State Library (4 notable book awards), Sequoyah National Research Center, and Ks. Arts Commission. A recent critical article about Gary Snyder is on the Marshhawk Press blog; another about poet Ronald Johnson is in Numero Cinq (2014) and another about William Stafford is in North Dakota Quartly (Spring 2014). An article about poetry of Kenneth Irby is in Jacket2 (Nov. 2014). Other publications are in Yellow Medicine Review, Virginian Quarterly Review, New Letters, Blue Lyra, North American Review, Connecticut Review, and others. After the death of her husband, she continues to publish an independent press, Mammoth Publications, which focuses on Indigenous literature. She grew up in the Flint Hills of Kansas, descended from northern European and Native (Delaware) peoples. Her Poetry Foundation biography is online with four sample poems.

Website: www.deniselow.net

Twitter Username: @kansaspoetry

Publications

• Turtle's Beating Heart: Family Story of Lenape Survival , University of Nebraska Press, rpt. 2023 (June 2017)
• House of Grace, House of Blood: Docupoetry , University of Nebraska Press, 2024 (December 31, 2023)
• Shadow Light: Poems , Red Mountain Press (June 15, 2019)

Awards

• Red Mt. Press Editor's Choice Award(2018)
• NEH Faculty Fellowship(2011)
• Poet Laureate of Kansas 2007-2009

Employment

• Adjunct Professor at Baker University--School of Professional and Graduate Studies (June 2011 - )
• Publisher at Mammoth Publications (September 2004 - )

Degrees

• Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing (Poetry) from Wichita State University (May 1987)
• Doctoral Degree in Literature/Creative Dissertation (Essays) from University of Kansas (December 1997)

Genres of Interest

Fiction, Creative nonfiction, Poetry