Anne
Kaier

In memoirs, essays, and poems, I write about the body. How does a woman with a disability see herself as a sexual being? I tangle with how my skin disorder, ichthyosis, has influenced my romantic life.

Honors include a mention in Best American Essays and the Propel Poetry Award (2025). NPR interviewed me about my essays that appeared in The New York Times. My memoir-in-progress is set at the University of Oxford, where I got an MA.

Photo: Suzanne Sennhenn

Just Published!

I'm proud to announce publication of my new book of poems. It won the Propel Series Award.

How Can I Say It Was Not Enough?

By Anne Kaier
A candid memoir-in-poems about family dynamics, love, and sex—in ravishing and accessible verse.

“Brutal yet gorgeous.”

—Poet Elaine Terranova,
author of Rinse.

“There is searing truth in these enthralling poems.”

— Eleanor Wilner,
2025 Chancellor of the Academy
of American Poets

Now Available at:

Amazon, Bookshop.org, Syracuse University Press, or your local indie bookstore.

Read selected poems from my new book,
How Can I Say It Was Not Enough?

Please click here and then scroll down to my name.

Finalist for the AWP's Prize for Creative Nonfiction.

I'm mighty pleased and honored that my manuscript, They Said I Couldn't Have a Love Life: A Memoir, is one of ten finalists for the 2024 Association of Writers & Writing Programs' Sue William Silverman Prize for Creative Nonfiction.

Read an excerpt from They Said I Couldn't Have a Love Life at the button below.

Button. Read more

Photo: Lisa Braxton

“A Window Outside the Wall”
An excerpt from my AWP Finalist manuscript, set in Oxford.

Fifty years after I first knew her at Oxford, I emailed Anna, telling her I planned to visit Britain. Could we get together? She’d been a lithe, black-haired, funny young Englishwoman and a kind friend when we were students. Working on a memoir about those years gave me an excuse to get in touch after a long, silent time.

“Yes, of course,” she replied. She and her husband Will would meet me at the train station in London. I should know, she wrote, that she now used a wheelchair because Multiple Sclerosis had slowed her down. But they’d love to see me.

Button. Read more

I talk about how my work as a poet influences my writing of memoir.

Rosemont Writer's Retreat with Anne Kaier and moderator Carla Spataro from Main Line Television on Vimeo.

Craft interviews:

Click here to read an interview in the AWP Writer's Chronicle. I talked about disability and poetry with poets Stephen A. Kussisto, Ona Gritz, Daniel Simpson, Nathan Spoon, and Lisa Dougherty..

Anne Kaier

Just Published!

I'm proud to announce publication of my new book of poems. It won the Propel Series Award.

How Can I Say It Was Not Enough?

By Anne Kaier A candid memoir-in-poems about family dynamics, love, and sex—in ravishing and accessible verse.

“Brutal yet gorgeous.”

—Poet Elaine Terranova,author of Rinse.

“There is searing truth in these enthralling poems.”

— Eleanor Wilner,2025 Chancellor of the Academyof American Poets

Now Available at:

Amazon, Bookshop.org, Syracuse University Press, or your local indie bookstore.

Read selected poems from my new book, How Can I Say It Was Not Enough? Please click here and then scroll down to my name.

Finalist for the AWP's Prize for Creative Nonfiction.

Read an excerpt from They Said I Couldn't Have a Love Life at the button below.

“A Window Outside the Wall” An excerpt from my AWP Finalist manuscript, set in Oxford.