Biography

Marie Kane grew up in Coral Gables, FL and Dunmore, PA.  She credits her teachers for recognizing her gift for writing and speaking, especially her 11th grade English teacher Paul Bradican.  She received her undergraduate degree in Secondary English Education from Bloomsburg University and earned a Master’s Degree in Education with a concentration in Creative Writing from Arcadia University in 1995.  Other studies include a short graduate writing instruction class under the guidance of Dana Gioia in 1990, and a program at the University of New Hampshire in 1997 with Donald Murray and others.  She is also a member of Dr. Christopher Bursk’s annual Poetry Master Classes at Bucks County Community College.

Kane is the Poetry and a Contributing Editor for Pentimento Magazine, which is devoted to publishing poetry, essays, fiction, creative non-fiction, art, and photography centering on the disabled community, both children and adults.  Writers who are disabled or in the disability community (caregivers, parents, doctors, etc.) may also submit work to the magazine. We love to publish work by young people with a disability who are under 18   Pentimento pays its contributors.
See http://www.pentimento.org for more information and submission guidelines.

Kane is the 2006 Bucks County (PA) Poet Laureate.   Two of her poems, “Radio Interview” and “In Every Life, Both” have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes.  She has received a recognition award for her poetry from the National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts, and an award for her teaching of young writers from The Scholastic Art and Writing Awards.  After twenty-eight years, she retired from Central Bucks School District (PA) where she taught Creative Writing, Honors and Standard English, AP English, World Literature, and other electives.  She was frequently nominated for Outstanding Teachers of America.  She has been a featured reader at the New Jersey State Museum, James A. Michener Art Museum, the International House in Philadelphia, Bucks County Community College, and at many bookstores and libraries. 

Some of her writing credits include the Belleview Literary Review, Schuylkill Valley Journal, U. S. 1 Worksheets, The Meadowland Review, Small Print Magazine, Wordgathering, Boston Literary Magazine, I-70 Review, and The Naugatuck River Review, among many others. Her poems have been anthologized in two Inglis House anthologies, the New Hampshire Poetry society’s The Poet’s Touchstone, the Delaware Valley Poets Anthology, the Bucks County Poets Laureate anthology, Making Our Own Light, and Valerie Fox and Lynn Levin’s book, Prompts for Poets. She is a second place winner in the 2008 Poetry Society of New Hampshire’s International Contest, and second and third place winner in the 2009 Inglis House International Contest, and a second runner-up in the 2010 Robert Fraser contest.  She has been a final juror for the Montgomery County (PA) High School Poetry Contest, is an editor for Poetry WITS, a scholastic online publication, and for the last five years, has been the final judge for the national scholastic Sarah Mook poetry contest, grades K-12.

Her chapbook, Survivors in the Garden, was published in June of 2012 by Big Table Publishing of Newton, MA., and nominated for a chapbook Pushcart Prize.  She was diagnosed with Relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis in 1991 and Secondary Progressive MS in 2005. Much of her work directly addresses her life with this disease.

She lives in Yardley, PA with her amazing husband, Steve, (a gifted artist and her loving caregiver) and their rescue cat, Casey Jones. They have five children (Sarah, Tom, Elizabeth, Anna, and Philip) and two grandchildren (Lucas and Tommy) who add much joy to their lives.