The Walrus Wives | Kelsea Habecker

Kelsea Habecker’s first book of poetry, Hollow Out, was selected by US Poet Laureate Charles Simic and published through New Rivers Press. Kelsea has received grants and fellowships from the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, the Constance Saltonstall Foundation in New York, and the Santa Fe Art Institute. She earned her MFA in poetry from Bennington Writing Seminars and her BA from Randolph-Macon Woman’s College. She was a finalist for the Ruth Lilly Fellowship in poetry, and received the John Haines award. She was a semi-finalist in the Bakeless Poetry Prize through Breadloaf Writer’s Conference, and Hollow Out was nominated for a Griffin Trust Award for Excellence in Poetry and for a PEN Literary Award. Kelsea teaches university creative writing and leads writing retreats at retreat centers in the US and abroad. For five years, Kelsea was a teacher in a remote Inupiaq Eskimo village in the Arctic region of Alaska, an experience that informs much of her writing.    __________________