Charlene Pierce

Charlene Pierce is a poet, teaching artist, and founder of the Nebraska Poetry Society, creating welcoming opportunities for writers to develop their craft and connect through literature. As an adjunct professor at Metro Community College, she helps students strengthen their writing and build confidence in their ideas. Her work has appeared in publications including Poetry Foundation, TriQuarterly, Whale Road Review, and The Good Life Review, and she is a Pushcart Prize nominee and Best of the Net finalist.

Pierce offers poetry workshops, craft talks, keynotes, community conversations, and facilitated readings for universities, conferences, literary organizations, and community groups. Her sessions combine close reading, accessible writing frameworks, and generative exercises, exploring subjects such as poetry as witness, narrative strategy, psychic distance, and writing as restoration. She also provides freelance writing services and shares publications and other work through her website. Through the Nebraska Poetry Society, which she launched in 2020, Pierce supports accessibility, equity, and community in the literary arts with workshops, readings, and conversations for writers across the state.