Senior Photo

As a poet and photo artist, I try to capture moments in words and photographs rather like one chases after a butterfly with a net…or sits motionless, waiting for the butterfly to land.

 —Liz Bennefeld

My husband and I live in Fargo, North Dakota, with our two cocker spaniels (Rascal and Samantha).

I was born within a few miles of here and grew up in a small farming town in western Minnesota. I always loved to read, and my parents encouraged my endeavor by reading to me (to us—I am the oldest of 9 children, 7 still living) and then handing me books that were among their own favorites.

I am active in the Science Fiction Poetry Association as a proofreader, and I have been responsible for putting together the Online Halloween Poetry Reading web page since 2006. I still read voraciously. I take lots of photographs and turn them into artworks. I entered my first poetry contest in 2008, and one of my entries was a “Judge’s Pick,” which got it into the contest chapbook published in June 2009. The poem I submitted for publication in 2009 (“Endings,” Star*Line July/August) was nominated for a 2010 Rhysling Award (short form) and the 2010 Dwarf Stars Award.  Always something new to explore!

I only submitted poetry to one magazine in 2010, and that was to a local print magazine, ARTSpulse, a publication of The Arts Partnership: Out of Time and Mother’s Cookbook were published in the December 2010-January 2011 issue.

Once again I submitted poetry in January 2011 to the Star*Line editor, and I expect to see a new poem published in either the July-September or the October-December issue. (Star*Line has gone quarterly, but it’s nearly twice the size of the bi-monthly; at least this first one is.)