Katherine Riegel‘s latest book is There’s No Wrong Way: 44 Meditations, which seeks to make meditation both accessible and fun. Her second most recent book is Letters to Colin Firth, which won the 2015 Sundress Publications Chapbook Competition. She is also the author of two books of poetry: What the Mouth Was Made For and Castaway, and a book on mindfulness and empowerment, The Manifesto. She received her MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and recently left academia for love and freelancing. Her poems and essays have appeared in numerous publications, including Brevity, Crazyhorse, The Offing, Orion, and The Rumpus. She is co-founder and poetry editor of Sweet: A Literary Confection.

More than that:

Katherine Riegel goes by Katie to most people, and wishes she’d had the sense to begin publishing under that name. Unfortunately, her first poems were published when when she was in college, and she thought real writers always used their formal names. So she waffles between names, and hopes you’ll call her whichever one you want–-or just “Riegel” (pronounced like “regal”), as her students often did.

Katie grew up in the tiny town of White Heath, Illinois, on a Morgan horse farm. She is a Midwesterner through and through. Her sister now runs a therapeutic riding farm, Healing Horse Stables, in central Illinois that Katie gets to visit regularly. After living in all the Midwestern “I” states (Illinois, Iowa, Indiana), Katie lived in upstate New York, then Tampa, Florida, and now Memphis, Tennessee. Her husband is not Colin Firth but he does have an English accent, which helps to make even his worst puns bearable.

Having dropped out of law school to be a poet, Katie has always cared about the inner life. Now she practices meditation and writes about the mindful life, believing that no matter what you do for a living, a rich inner life is necessary for peace, fulfillment, and self-empowerment. Learn more at The Manifesto: Suggestions for a Freer Life or watch some of her videos.

Visit her website, like her Facebook page, follow her on Twitter, subscribe to her YouTube channel, or contact her via email at kriegelwriter@gmail.com.

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