Welcome! And thank you for visiting my writer's page.

A writing bio follows, but in case you are looking to get a sense of who I am in the world (and therefore in my writing), I've included a more informal bio at the bottom of this page.

Karen Loucks (formerly Chester) lives and writes in Victoria, B.C., the unceded traditional territory of the lək̓ʷəŋən speaking peoples. She worked for many years as a park naturalist and is currently a clinical counsellor with a special interest in grief and loss. Her poetry has been previously published in the following anthologies: I'll Get Right On it: Poems on Working Life in the Climate Crisis; Worth More Standing; Sweet Water: Poems for the Watersheds; Voicing Suicide; Rocksalt: An Anthology of Contemporary BC Poetry; Poems from Planet Earth;  and in two chapbooks edited by Patrick Lane. She won the High Marsh Press Deborah Wills Chapbook Contest (2024), and had a poem longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize (2023).

More About Me

I am partner, daughter, mother, sister, aunt, friend. I am deeply grateful for Jenna, my partner and co-conspirator. A friend once said that relationships mean more to me than anything else. This is true. I grew up in Victoria and raised both my children here. When I was five, my parents moved to a house with a bit of forest and field, still within the city limits. This was lifechanging. I learned early how to cultivate relationship with the inhabitants of land, sea, sky … the “natural world” of which we are all part (whether we feel it or not). I am deeply concerned about the wellbeing of our host and home. You will notice this in my writing. I do best with outside air and prefer a life lived with animals. I've had the privilege of sharing my heart and hearth with two small dogs, first Lukey and now Rowan. They appear often in my poems. My work as a clinical counsellor both humbles and inspires me. I have such gratitude for my clients, those who are living and those who have died. Each of them has allowed me to witness in exquisite ways what it is to be human.