Photo credit: Brett Richards
Dr. Kate Gale is the award-winning Publisher, Co-Founder, and Managing Editor of Red Hen Press and the Editor of the Los Angeles Review.
Her memoir, Little Soldiers, will be published with SJP Lit (Zando) in early 2027. She is the author of seven books of poetry, including The Loneliness Girl, The Goldilocks Zone, and Echo Light. Her debut novel, Under a Neon Sun, was released in April 2024.
Kate served as the President of PEN USA from 2005 to 2006. She currently serves as an Aspen Institute Society Fellow and on the board of the Poetry Society of America. As a publishing expert, she speaks on independent publishing across the U.S. at institutes such as USC, Columbia, Oxford University, and Chapman University.
Kate has written six librettos, including Rio de Sangre, a libretto for an opera with composer Don Davis, which had its world premiere in October 2010 at the Florentine Opera in Milwaukee, WI.
From 2006 to 2014, she served as the President of the American Composers Forum. Her operas in process include The Web Opera and a piece centered on Che Guevara, featuring Cuban composer Armando Bayolo.
MORE ABOUT KATE
There are poets and writers who have a personal brand that they are building, and everything they do builds their brand. Kate doesn’t have a brand. Instead, she has a way of walking through the world. Her way of walking is with her hands and her heart open. She learns from her mistakes. She is open to the universe and every opportunity to be with other writers in community and in the mission of making literary work available as widely as possible.
Kate has been building community since she moved to California in the late '80s. Because Kate comes from poverty, most of her work goes unacknowledged, and that’s okay. Kate believes in opening doors, in hard work, in planting seeds that will grow for other writers, in diversity, in magic, in water, in light. Kate believes in the possibility that we can learn from our mistakes and do better. Every day is a gift. Every day that we can pick up the pen, write a poem, read a book, and find ourselves in the world of story, we should accept with gratitude.