Beth Gulley
Beth Gruver Gulley is a Kansas poet and professor who likes to get lost in the woods. She has a curious, adventuresome streak: she’s jumped from moving buses in Paraguay, visited the breeding ground for Giant Chinese Salamanders, and run more than fifty miles at a time.
Beth has published five collections of poetry: “The Sticky Note Alphabet,” “Dragon Eggs,” "The Love of Ornamental Fish,” "Little Fish: Tiny Mediations on Freedom,” and “Since Corona Ruined Our Trip to the Library.” She is a member of the Kansas Authors Club and the Riverfront Reading Committee. She also serves on the Writers Place board. When Beth is not writing, teaching at Johnson County Community College or volunteering, she likes to hang out with her cat.
Of her writing, former Poet Laureate of Kansas Kevin Rabas says, “Beth Gulley is a writer of profound insight, someone who can see both the catastrophe and the miracle in almost anything. These poems are proof. In them, there is a cat that rides thirty miles on the motor of a car being towed. There is an asteroid that almost hits earth on a beloved’s birthday: ‘Your birthday will still be sweet/without the explosion.’ This is the world of Aimee Bender or Judy Budnitz, but it is also our world, as Kansans—or your story, wherever you live.”
We’re thrilled to welcome Beth to the Writers Conference faculty this year! She’ll be leading a session titled, “Writing In the Park” on both Friday and Saturday. Bring your lawn chair (or a blanket) and your notebook and pen(cil); Beth will bring the prompts and the inspiration.
—written by Lisa Allen, adult services specialist