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Janna Knittel (use name) lives in Minnesota but sometimes still calls the Pacific Northwest "home." Janna earned an MFA from the University of Minnesota.

Janna is the author of Real Work (Nodin Press, 2022), a finalist for the 2023 Minnesota Book Award in poetry, and the chapbook Fish & Wild Life (Finishing Line Press, 2018 ).

Janna also has published poetry in the journals Adirondack Review, Blueline, Conduit, Constellations, Cold Mountain Review, Jabberwock Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Pleiades, Up North Lit, Split Rock Review, Tiny Seed, and Whale Road Review and in the anthologies Broad Wings, Long Legs: A Rookery of Heron Poems (North Star Press, forthcoming 2024); The Experiment Will Not Be Bound (Unbound Editions, 2023); and Waters Deep: A Great Lakes Anthology (Split Rock Review, 2018).

Awards and recognition include grants from the Minnesota State Arts Board and the University of Minnesota College of Liberal Arts; being a finalist for the New Women's Voices series from Finishing Line Press, the Up North Lit poetry prize, and the Rita Dove Poetry Award from the Center for Women Writers; and two James Wright Awards from the American Academy of Poets.

Janna has taught at the University of Oregon, Oregon State University, Southern Oregon University, the University of Kansas, Saint Cloud State University, the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities, St. Olaf College, the University of Minnesota - Crookston, and Banfill-Locke Center for the Arts (now North Suburban Center for the Arts) and was the Curator of the 2018 Banfill-Locke Reading Series.

Logos for the Minnesota State Arts Board and the Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment, followed by the credit line, "This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund."