Alumna and Author Karen McKinnon (left) signing document with the current Chair of the English Department, Anita Obermeier (middle) and Yolanda Dominguez, the Senior Director of Development at the College of Arts and Sciences
Karen McKinnon, alumna of the UNM English Department and a lover of creative writing, especially poetry, made a $100,000 donation to the UNM Foundation for the benefit of the English Department to administer a Creative Writing Poetry contest for UNM undergraduates. The first contest will be held in the Spring of next year, 2017.
Karen McKinnon pictured with English Department Faculty and Graduate Students in the English Department Lounge
Karen McKinnon has published four poetry books: Set In Motion, Coming True, Spiralings: A Journal into Poems, and Stereoscopic: Poems. Her poems have furthermore been included in the publication In Company: New Mexico Poets after 1960, published by UNM Press in 2004. She also was heavily involved in the Poet-In-the-Schools Program which focused on incorporating and highlighting poetry within numerous educational curricula nation-wide, sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts. We are very grateful to Karen McKinnon for her generous donation.
Find out more about Karen McKinnon on our Alumni Spotlight Page.
