kristy bowen | writer & book artist

#31daysofoctober a little 19th century horror....adapted from my favorite short story... read it HERE: https://heyzine.com/flip-book/4dec242280.html #play #yellowwallpaper #adaptation #chicagoplays

read the electronic version HERE...

read the e-zine version HERE...

from EXQUISITE DAMAGE (2019)....

A new zine project just went up today!

I've been reading a lot of commentary regarding literary adaptations.

A while back, my sister and I did a collab zine devoted to the infamous Slenderman stabbing in Wisconsin, featuring my writing and her art.

from {LICORICE, LAUDANUM} read the e-zine HERE: https://heyzine.com/flip-book/d1e03263e2.html#page/1

Occasionally, fall in Chicago delivers some beautiful days where the temps feel like mild summer and the nights get cozy and chilly.

This fun little mini-zine of poems wound up being included in our library collaborative Grimm Project in 2018

a sneak peek at a poem from the next manuscript I am working on....

These collages are from a visual/text series of work that is centered around a house made entirely of bones, told in documents and fragments.

The trees have finally decided to get on board with autumn, and the ground and everything else is covered in a layer of small yellow leaves (locust trees I think.)

This series of poems inspired by gothic governesses was included in MARRY KISS KILL this past summer, but you can check out the poems and their accompanying collages as a free e-zine published a couple years back. https://heyzine.com/flip-book/93d24b3bac.…

This one was a fun, limited edition box project a couple of autumn's back, but you can read a digital version for free HERE: https://heyzine.com/flip-book/fcf6de84ca.html #poetry #horrorpoetry #fauztography #writinglife

Some B-movie, atomic era horrors...

Read a free e-version of my play about local Chicago ghosty legend, Resurrection Mary.

Written in 2023 at the very dawn of AI discussions among the general populace, this little series of poems and collages proves that, sometimes, the sex really is in the machine... read it HERE...

I always say that Stephen King has had just as much influence on my poems as Emily Dickinson or TS Eliot.

from SWALLOW (2021) This series of poems was originally released as a videopoem chapbook you can find on YouTube HERE.

This may perhaps be one of the most challenging writing projects I've ever completed, despite its slender little 40-ish minute run time (mostly due to concurrent events in various hotel rooms Since May, I've had to keep straight and a non-linear narrative…

from Resident Evil (2026) I long ago came to the realization that my poems are usually different from others writing around and near me, both in the real world and virtual spaces I inhabit as a creative.

an early video poem from SEX & VIOLENCE (Black Lawrence Press, 2020)

Another week is quickly vanishing down the rabbit hole and we find ourselves mid-September, though the humidity the past couple of days may belie that.

an early video poem from Sex & Violence (Black Lawrence Press, 2020)...

Every year when the anniversary of the World Trade Center disaster rolls around, I find people mentioning how on that day, both in Manhattan and here in Chicago the sky was insultingly clear and blue and beautiful presiding over unspeakable things.

a videopoem from SEX & VIOLENCE (Black Lawrence Press, 2020)

Last November, I got it in my head that I wanted to start writing plays.

When I was a kid and was first starting school, I somewhat remember the routine of my days--the early morning wake ups, sitting cross-legged and staring up at the letters of the alphabet that lined the top of the room, with playtimes and graham cracker sn…

We find ourselves in September and the light is already dwindling earlier each night.

a revisit of my very first video poem I learned how to make during covid lockdowns when SEX & VIOLENCE was released in the summer of 2020...

I was recently reading some older blog posts from two decades ago, which are always strange given the immense span of time between then and now.

The past weekend not only included another little mini writing retreat out in the burblands, but also a production of Mean Girls out in Aurora that put even the Broadway tour to shame in terms of staging, performances, and a slight rearrangement in newer…

This is one piece of a whole video chapbook, SWALLOW, that I issued in 2021.

This weekend had just the slightest tinge of fall about it.

I have a couple spots open for manuscript workings in mid-September/early October.

As we close in on the last couple weeks of the open reading period, I am enjoying wading into the submissions pool and have even started accepting some titles for the first couple months of the 2026-27 season (and amazingly am somewhat on schedule getting…

Last weekend, when we arrived home from our hotel weekend, it was off for a quick dinner in a little bar tucked under the L tracks and a production of The Outsiders, a musical I had opted not to get tickets for last time it was in town, but which I spring…

The first time I encountered AI generated images was in the fall of 2022.

Somehow, the week is already disappearing down the rabbit hole, but I am holding on fast, designing books and working fervently on a play script for a deadline in a few days.

Told in 17-Year cycles and through three generations of women, this remote cabin ghost story plumbs the ways we harbor our ghosts and how they might just harbor us.

When it comes to poetry, my relationship with revising my own work has changed over the years.

I spent a little time this morning with the already published bits of my Antiquities series--GRANATA and CLOVEN that take their roots in mythology.

This weekend found me holed up for a writing mini-retreat while J worked a wedding gig in Wisconsin, which meant a whole uninterrupted day of working on the zombie/hotel play, which didn't start out with zombies at all, but somehow ended up there, miles a…

upcoming DGP cover collage As we crest the midpoint of summer submissions entering the inbox in consideration for next years series of books, I've been thinking a little gain about what makes a book stand out in the queue and what gets passed on to the se…

One of the things I am most loving mucking around with in my play scripts is time--the movement backward and forward.

Not only do you get to enjoy 5 recent dgp titles chosen randomly for you and get a sampling of the work we publish at a great discounted price, but each blind book box also comes with bookmarks, postcards, prints, stickers and more.