Karren Alenier literary papers

Karren LaLonde Alenier is author of many books of poetry and winner of the 2002 Towson University Prize for Literature. Her poetry and fiction have been published in such magazines as: the Mississippi Review, Jewish Currents, and Poet Lore. "Gertrude Stein Invents a Jump Early On," her opera with composer William Banfield and Encompass New Opera Theatre artistic director Nancy Rhodes, premiered in New York City in June 2005.

In 1982 through a program sponsored by New York's School of Visual Arts, Karren spent three weeks studying with writer/composer Paul Bowles in Tangier, Morocco.

In 1995, Karren traveled to Prague to work with James Ragan on what would become her fourth collection of poetry, later titled Looking For Divine Transportation. This collection was awarded the 2002 Towson University Prize for Literature. In 1996, her third collection of poems Bumper Cars: Gertrude Said She Took Him For A Ride was published by Mica Press of Ft. Collins, Colorado. This chapbook contained a selection of her Stein poems and an early draft of Act I of Gertrude Stein Invents A Jump Early On.

Active in the American literary community, Karren has developed and managed literary programs that promote poetry. She has been involved in organizations and programs at the Folger Shakespeare Library and the Library of Congress. Since her first book of poetry was published in 1975, she has had an active role in The Word Works, a D.C. based nonprofit literary and educational organization that publishes contemporary poetry in collector's editions and presents public programs.