Kristen Henderson

Kristen Henderson is the author of two collections of poetry, Drum Machine (Alva Press, 2011), and Of My Maiden Smoking (Alva Press, 2016). Her new collection of poems is expected to published in late 2018, or early 2019.

Henderson received a BA from Sarah Lawrence College, and a MFA in poetry from the University of Arizona. Her poems have appeared in Birmingham Review, ByLine, Clackamas Review, Karamu, Bloom, and other journals. In the spring of 2007, two of her poems were selected by Eamon Grennan to appear in Vanguard Voices of the Hudson Valley, II. Henderson is also a 2005 and 2007 Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg competition award recipient and received First Honorable Mention in the Passages North Elinor Benedict poetry competition in 2001, and was a finalist again in 2006. Henderson received a MSW at SUNY Albany in May 2008. In 2010, after working as a case manager at a residential treatment center in Rhinebeck, NY, Henderson became Director of the Cherry Branch Gallery in Cherry Valley, NY.

From 2010-2015 she hosted and/or curated over 45 exhibitions by such prominent artists as: illustrator, Scott Donohue; multimedia artist, Richard Frasca; watercolorist, Carol Ann Henderson; painter, Alice B. Hurwitz; multimedia artist, David Leo; impressionist, Ed McDaniel; watercolorist, Kathy Minnig; potter/clay artist, MaryAnn Nellis; plein air painter, Mary Nolan; landscape painter, Richard Redmond; photographer, Phil Scalia; sculptor, Jennifer L. Smith; photographer, Robin Supak; iphoneographer, Vicki Whicker; among many highly skilled and accomplished others, too numerous to mention. Over this period, Henderson won eLit's 2011 Gold medal in poetry.

She also welcomed a monthly writers' group, hosted readings-- most notably

by poets, Dennis Bernstein, author of Special Ed; F. Bjórnson Stock, author of Drawing Water; memoirist, Nancy Waller, author of My Nanking Home: 1918-1937; and a memorably enchanting evening of journal excerpts by Pamela Livingston about her travels to the Peruvian Amazon.