Jen Karetnick

Poet, Creative Nonfiction Writer

Miami, FL
Florida US
Email: 
kavetchnik@gmail.com
Website: 
jkaretnick.com
Twitter/X: 
@Kavetchnik

Author's Bio

Jen Karetnick is the author of five full-length books of poetry: Inheritance with a High Error Rate January, 2024), winner of the Cider Press Review Book Award; the 2021 CIPA EVVY Gold Medal-winning The Burning Where Breath Used to Be (David Robert Books, 2020); The Treasures That Prevail (Whitepoint Press, September 2016), finalist for the 2017 Poetry Society of Virginia Book Prize; American Sentencing (Winter Goose Publishing, May 2016), long-listed for both the 2017 Julie Suk Award and the 2017 Lascaux Prize; and Brie Season (White Violet Press, 2014). She has also published five poetry chapbooks, including The Crossing Over, winner of the 2018 Split Rock Review Chapbook Competition, and Bud Break at Mango House, winner of the 2008 Portlandia Poetry Chapbook Prize, with her sixth, What Forges Us Steel: The Judge Judy Poems, forthcoming (Alternating Current Press, 2024). Additionally, she is the editor of two anthologies of South Florida poets and writers. She has received fellowships and residencies from Vermont Studio Center; Wassaic Projects; Write On, Door County; Centrum Residencies; Wildacres Retreat; Mother's Milk Artist Residencies; Artists in Residence in the Everglades; The Writers' Room at The Betsy Hotel-South Beach; The Solarium International Hostel in Fort Collins, Colorado; and literary workshops in Patzcuaro, Mexico and Transylvania, Romania. She is the recipient of grants from the Maryland Transit Administration Purple Line Writers' Program, O, Miami, IMPACT II Ideas, and Target. She is co-founder of the non-profit residency and reading series SWWIM (Supporting Women Writers in Miami), and co-founder/managing editor of the online international literary journal, SWWIM Every Day. Jen works as a dining critic, a freelance food-travel-lifestyle writer, a recipe developer, and a cookbook and guidebook author, including The 500 Hidden Secrets of Miami (Luster, 2024, fourth edition); Ice Cube Tray Recipes: 75 Easy and Creative Kitchen Hacks for Freezing, Cooking, and Baking with Ice Cube Trays (Skyhorse Publishing, June 2019), and the award-winning cookbook, Mango (University Press of Florida, 2014), based on her real-life experiences on a working mango grove. She is also co-author of Raw Food/Real World (William Morris, 2005), as seen in the Netflix documentary, Bad Vegan.

Education: 
University of California, Irvine MFA
University of Miami MFA
Writers Retreats: 
Association of Writers & Writing Programs Conference and Bookfair
Vermont Studio Center
Literary agent: 
Jessica Alvarez, BookEnds Literary Agency

Publications & Prizes

Creative Nonfiction

Anthology:
Wild Horses: The Women on Fire Series (ELJ Publications, 2015)
Journals:
District Lit
,
Good Housekeeping
,
Guernica Magazine
,
Miami Herald
,
Prairie Schooner

Poetry

Anthologies:
A Run for the Money: Poems from Hialeah (Tigertail Productions, 2016)
,
2013 Poet's Market (Writer's Digest Books, 2013)
,
Sun-Struck Matches: Volume X (Tigertail Productions, 2013)
,
The Bloomsbury Anthology of Contemporary Jewish American Poetry (Bloomsbury USA, 2013)
,
Florida Flash: Volume IX (Tigertail Productions, 2011)
,
gape-seed (Uphook Press, 2011)
,
Reeds and Rushes (Pudding House Press, 2010)
,
Hurricane Blues (Southeast Missouri State University Press, 2006)
,
A South Florida Poetry Annual, Editor's Choice, Volume I-IV, (Tigertail Productions, 2005)
,
A South Florida Poetry Annual, Volume III (Tigertail Productions, 2004)
Books:
The Burning Where Breath Used to Be (David Robert Books, 2020)
,
American Sentencing (Winter Goose Publishing, 2016)
,
The Treasures That Prevail (Whitepoint Press, 2016)
,
Brie Season (White Violet Press, 2014)
Chapbooks:
The Crossing Over (Split Rock Review, 2019)
,
Prayer of Confession (Finishing Line Press, 2014)
,
Landscaping for Wildlife (Big Wonderful Press, 2012)
,
Bud Break at Mango House (Portlandia Group, 2008)
,
Necessary Salt (Pudding House Publications, 2007)
Journals:
About Place Journal
,
Adirondack Review
,
Alimentum
,
Amethyst Arsenic
,
Aura Literary Arts Review
,
Autumn Sky
,
Barrow Street
,
Black River Review
,
Blood & Fire Review
,
Blood Lotus
,
Blue Lyra Review
,
Blue Unicorn
,
Boiler Journal
,
Carpe Articulum Literary Review
,
Chest
,
Cider Press Review
,
Cimarron Review
,
Cleaver Magazine
,
Cobalt Review
,
Consequence
,
Construction
,
Crab Creek Review
,
Crab Orchard Review
,
Cutthroat: A Journal of the Arts
,
december
,
Fourth River
,
Gastronomica
,
Georgetown Review
,
Ghazal Page
,
Glass: A Journal of Poetry
,
Gordon Square Review
,
Greensboro Review
,
Gulf Stream
,
Hamilton Stone Review
,
Headway
,
Healing Muse
,
Heavy Feather Review
,
Helen
,
Hospital Drive
,
Icon
,
Intima: Narrative Medicine
,
Isotope: Journal of Nature and Science Writing
,
IthacaLit
,
JAMA
,
Jet Fuel Review
,
JMWW
,
Journal of New Jersey Poets
,
Laurel Review
,
Light Ekphrastic
,
Lunch Ticket
,
Lyre Lyre
,
MacGuffin
,
Maryland Poetry Review
,
Michigan Quarterly Review
,
Missouri Review
,
Mobius: The Journal of Social Change
,
Mount Hope
,
Nebo
,
Nebraska Review
,
Negative Capability
,
New Guard
,
New Verse News
,
Nexus
,
North American Review
,
OCHO
,
One
,
Oyez Review
,
Painted Bride Quarterly
,
Pearl Magazine
,
Phase & Cycle
,
Pittsburgh Poetry Review
,
Poetica Magazine
,
Poetry Quarterly
,
Prime Number Magazine
,
Radius
,
Rattle
,
RE:AL
,
River Styx
,
Rogue Agent
,
Salamander
,
Scintilla Magazine
,
Seneca Review
,
SHARKPACK Annual
,
Slab Literary Review
,
Slate
,
Snapdragon
,
Sou'wester
,
Spillway
,
Split Rock Review
,
Spoon River Poetry Review
,
Stickman Review
,
Sweet: A Literary Confection
,
Temenos Journal
,
The Gambler
,
The Inquisitive Eater
,
The Ledge
,
The Oval
,
The Poetry Storehouse
,
Thin Air Magazine
,
Tidal Basin Review
,
Valparaiso Poetry Review
,
Verse Daily
,
Waxwing
,
Whale Road Review
,
Yellow Chair Review
Prizes won: 

2024 National Poetry Series finalist

2024 Sweet: Lit Poetry Prize 

2022 Cider Press Review Book Award

2021 CIPA Gold Medal for The Burning Where Breath Used to Be (David Robert Books, 2020)

2020 Tiferet Writing Contest for Poetry

2018 Split Rock Review Chapbook Competition

2017 Hart Crane Memorial Poetry Contest

2016 Romeo Lemay Poetry Prize

2015 Anna Davidson Rosenberg Prize

2014 featured juried poet at Houston Poetry Fest

2012 The “Piccolo in Your Pocket” Contest from the Alaska Flute Studies Center

2010 Named one of 33 "Emerging Creative Minds" by SOFI Magazine

2008 Portlandia Chapbook Prize

2008 and 2005 Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Awards

Six Pushcart Prize nominations

Five Best of the Net nominations

Placed in the following: 2024 Beullah Rose Poetry Competition from Smartish Pace; semi-finalist in the 2024 Poet Hunt 29 from The MacGuffin; Honorable Mention in the 2023 inaugural Maureen Seaton Poetry Prize; Honorable Mention (2023), Finalist ( 2021), and Finalist (2020) in the Joy Harjo Poetry prizes from Cutthroat, A Journal of the Arts; Short List (2024) and Longlist (2021) in the Alpine Fellowship for Poetry; Finalist in the 2021 Sweet: Lit Poetry Prize; Finalist in the 2019 Patricia Cleary Miller Award for Poetry from New Letters; Finalist in the 2019 Brett Elizabeth Jenkins Poetry Contest from Tinderbox Poetry Journal; Finalist in the 2019 Construction Literary Magazine Poetry Contest; Honorable Mention in the 2019 Passager Journal Poetry Contest; Honorable Mention in the 2018 Headway Quarterly’s Inaugural Writing Contest; Finalist in the 44th New Millennium Awards; Runner-Up in The Atlantis Poetry Award; Finalist in the Bermuda Triangle Prize; Semi-Finalist in the 2017 Crab Creek Review Poetry Prize; Second and Third Places in two Palm Beach Poetry Festival Competitions; Third Prize and Finalist in two River Styx International Poetry Prizes; Second Place and Finalist in two Stephen A. DiBiase Poetry Prizes; Finalist in the 2009 Patricia Dobler Poetry Award; Semi-Finalist in the 1998 and 1999 Discovery/The Nation Poetry Prizes; and others. 

For food and travel writing, first place in the Green Eyeshade/Society of Professional Journalists, Association of Food Journalists and North American Travel Journalists Association, and second place in the Les Dames d'Escoffier MFK Fisher Awards for Culinary Writing in the Cookbook category for Mango. From the Tip of My Tongue won "Best Woman Cookbook in the USA" from the World Gourmand Awards and came in third for Best in the World.

More Information

Gives readings: 
Yes
Travels for readings: 
Yes
Identifies as: 
Jewish
Prefers to work with: 
Any
Fluent in: 
English
Born in: 
Livingston, NJ
New Jersey
Raised in: 
Livingston, NJ
New Jersey
Please note: All information in the Directory is provided by the listed writers or their representatives.
Last update: Sep 26, 2024