Palimpsest Girl, a Mad Orphan Lit. autobiography project, is in the works. Until then, here is the dry third-person bit:

Ren (Katherine) Powell is a poet, playwright, translator and teaching artist. She is a native Californian living on the west coast of Norway.

Ren has been a member of The Norwegian Author's Union since 2005, and has published five full-length collections of poetry and more than a dozen books of translations with traditional publishing houses.

Her poetry collections have been purchased by the Norwegian Arts Council for national library distribution and her poems have been translated and published in six languages. She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2011 for her 18-part poem "Red-Eared Slider", published in Mercy Island by Phoenicia Publishing. Her non-fiction essays have appeared in anthologies and magazines and her dramatic works have been performed in the U.S., Canada and Norway.

Ren has a BA in Theater Arts from Texas A&M, and an MA and PhD in Creative Writing from Lancaster University. She has taught theater, drama and creative writing to teens for over fifteen years, and has been a graduate advisor with Prescott College's Master of Arts program, which emphasizes community service as part of their teaching ethos.

From 2005 to 2008 Ren served as the Norwegian PEN representative for the International PEN Women Writers’ Committee. She also helped establish the International Cities of Refuge Network and is the founding editor of the online literary journals Protest Poems.org and Babel Fruit: Writing Under the Influence. Ren is currently an associate editor for Poemeleon, and teaches Theater Arts at Vågen, a secondary school for visual and performing arts.

Ren's work often centers on themes of human rights/abuses, place/displacement, and mental disorders.