Karen Jane Cannon is a poet, novelist and nature writer. She is a PhD Candidate at the University of Southampton, researching poetry and place. Powder Monkey (as Karen Sainsbury) was published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson in 2002 and Phoenix in 2003.
Karen was the winner of The Poetry Society’s Hamish Canham Prize in 2022, shortlisted for The Bridport Prize in 2023 and 2019, commended for the Hippocrates prize for Poetry and Medicine, 2021, and a finalist in the Mslexia Poetry Competition, 2017.
She has written three poetry pamphlets–The Salterns (Nine Pens Press, 2024), The Curfew Bell (Indigo Dreams Publishing, 2021) and Emergency Mints (Paper Swans Press, 2018).
https://www.indigodreams.co.uk/karen-jane-cannon/4595121238
Karen’s poems have been published widely in literary journals and anthologies in the UK and USA, including Magma, Acumen, Envoi, Mslexia, Poetry News, Orbis, Obsessed with Pipework, The Interpreter’s House, Ink, Sweat & Tears, and Popshot.
Karen’s book-in-progress Wild Sight, exploring landscape and visual impairment, was longlisted for the Nan Shepherd Prize in 2021, and was awarded a Society of Authors Foundation Grant in 2022. She is also an award-winning radio playwright. She has an MA with distinction in Creative Writing from Bath Spa University, where she lectured for three years. She was Roving Writer in Residence for Somerset Libraries in 2003, an initiative funded by The Arts Council. She lives in the New Forest National Park.
Karen is creator of
https://englishchannelpoetryarchive.poetry.blog/
https://newforestpoetryproject.wordpress.com/
Praise for Powder Monkey:
The juxtaposition of pathos, comedy and sheep s** produces some geniunely funny lines.’ The Times
“A hilarious, brilliantly inventive book that shows how sad and weird ordinary life can be.’ Richard Francis, author of Red Hen
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Karen Jane Cannon 
