Photo credit: Alfred Haymond
Dr. Kate Gale is Publisher, Co-Founder, and Managing Editor of Red Hen Press and the Editor of the Los Angeles Review. She teaches Poetry at Chapman University.
She is the author of seven books of poetry, including THE LONLIEST GIRL, THE GOLDILOCKS ZONE, and ECHO LIGHT. Her debut novel, UNDER A NEON SUN, debuted in April 2024. Her memoir, SWIMMING THE MILKY WAY, is forthcoming with Zando.
Kate has also 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.
She speaks on independent publishing around the U.S. at schools like USC, Columbia, and Oxford University. Her operas in process include The Web Opera and a piece centered on Che Guevara, featuring Cuban composer Armando Bayolo.
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 though the world. Her way of walking is with open hands and heart. 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 Eighties. 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, find ourselves in the world of story, we should accept with gratitude.