Sandra Feen is a speaker and workshop facilitator at the 2022 NFSP (National Federation of State Poetry Societies) Convention, Renewal through Poetry.
A member of the poetry troupe Concrete Wink, with Rikki Santer and Chuck Salmons, her first photography show became intrinsic to their Winks, Drinks and Vibes reading, held at the Sunbear Studio, in Westerville, Ohio, in February 2022.Concrete Wink wrote and read ekphrastic poems to two dozen of her photos on display. In addition, Sandy and Rikki won Heavy Feather Review’s second-annual Zachary Doss Friends in Letters Fellowship, for their poetry collaboration titled, Emotion Bus.
Sandy is a former associate editor of Pudding magazine, former urban fiction editor, and was in the RedKitchen poetry troupe, founded by Jennifer Bosveld.
She also co-facilitated several reading series, including the Columbus, Ohio Teapot Poetry Series, Rattlebox, and Peripatetic. She has read in venues in and out of Ohio for over 30 years, most notably in Connecticut’s National Beat Poetry Festival, New York’s Brooklyn Poets Yawp, Michigan’s Madhouse and Firefly International Beat Poetry Festival, Kansas City, Missouri’s Fountainverse Small Press Poetry Festival, Columbus, Ohio’s Jung Haus, Paging Columbus, and Bossy Grrls, and with Concrete Wink, Speak Up Against Gender Violence, in Athens, Ohio.
In addition, she has performed work by Holocaust writers in Susan Millard Schwarz’s Anahata Music Project.
She has had the honor of reading and/or being interviewed for several stellar online venues, such as James Bryant’s SpoFest Open Mic and Poetry Series, Debbie T. Kilday’s National BEAT Poetry Festival and International BEAT Poetry Goddess Festival, Penny Thieme’s VALA, Jonie McIntire’s Uncloistered Poetry, Leonard Germinara’s Sacramento Poetry Center, Kari Gunter-Seymour and Stephanie Kendrick’s Athens County Poets and Storytellers, Dustin Pickering’s Literary Parrot Corner,Malaika King Albrecht’s Redheaded Stepchild, John Compton’s The JoJo Show, Doc Janning’s Awenites, and James P. Wagner’s Bards Poetry Revolution podcasts.
A 2020 VALA recipient, member of the Ohio Poetry Association, and Bistro Poets writing critique group, Sandy is the former director of the Ohio Poetry Therapy Writers’ Group. She has given poetry therapy workshops throughout Ohio and has 70 hours toward certification. Sandy has a BFA in Creative Writing and a BS in English Education from Bowling Green State University, as well as an MA in Literature from Wright State University. She was one of twelve teachers selected for a National Endowment of the Arts first “Change Course” program through Wright State University’s Institute on Writing and Its Teaching. A two-time OCTELA (Ohio Council of Teachers of English Language Arts) presenter, Sandy has also given writing workshops at the Ohio State University, Wright State University, Clark State Community College, and Antioch University, along with various poetry venues. and was twice awarded Educator of the Year at the high school where she taught most of her career, where she created their literary magazine and poetry slam team. She has also taught adult evening high school English courses, including Drama, worked as a proofreader for a braille textbook company, and has tutored and served as an editor in ChichibuCity Schools, in Chichibu, Japan.
She has published in numerous anthologies, such as Thirteen Myna Birds, The Literary Parrot, Gasconade Review, Goddess: Raising Consciousness Through Spoken Word, Pink Plastic House Literary Magazine, Porter Gulch Review, Ohio Poetry Association’s Everything Stops and Listens, Columbus Creative Cooperative’s Ides of March, and Cap City Poets: Columbus, Ohio’s Best Known, Read, and Requested Poets. Photography publications include Thirteen Myna Birds, The Literary Parrot, and Thimble Literary Magazine. A collection of her poems was named finalist for The Lascaux Review’s 2018 Lascaux Poetry Prize. Twice Sandy has been on the cover of two literary collections: JoJo Compton’s chapbook, i saw god cookingchildren/paint their bones (Blood Pudding Press) and the anthology, Pudding House Gang (Pudding House Publications).
Sandra Feen is the author of Evidence of Starving (Voice Lux Journal 2021) Meat and Bone (Luchador Press 2019), and Fragile Capacities: School Poems (NightBallet Press 2018).
Fragile Capacities – nominated for the Ohioana Book Award – highlights her 32-year teaching career in an urban school system. The poem “Palms Monday” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
Sandra Feen is currently working on a multi-genre book with journalist Cliff Treyens, about their fathers’ friendship.