Michele Mekel
Living in Happy Valley, Michele Mekel wears many hats: educator, bioethicist, poetess, cat herder, witch, and woman. Mekel's 2026 full length poetry book, Loverless Beds, published by Selkie Songs Press (London) features autopathography, magical musings, and rants related to life's moments big and small. Mekel also has a chapbook, Under a Quiet Moon. Her work has appeared in various academic and creative publications, was featured on Garrison Keillor’s The Writer’s Almanac, and was nominated for Best of the Net. Her poetry has also been translated into Cherokee. She served as co-principal investigator for the Viral Imaginations: COVID-19 project (viralimaginations.psu.edu).
Praise for Loverless Beds
"Perhaps you will like her very short poems that capture so much in just a few lines, as in 'Atlas'—hung on the wall as a map to the future. Need a curse that masquerades as a blessing? Try 'Annointing.' Michele also writes eloquently about current events and health—today’s America, and depression, anxiety, and being diagnosed as bipolar. I predict you will find yourself coming back to Michele Mekel’s wonderful new poetry book, Loverless Beds. Perhaps you will come for the humor, as Michele can be very funny. In 'Star-Crossed Wishes,' she writes of wishes that need to join the queue as at the DMV, in a manner that makes me think of the poems of Billy Collins..."
—Steven Deutsch , Sinclair Poetry Prize winner for Brooklyn
"Despite the title, Loverless Beds is replete with unexpected bedfellows—nesuferit and nosology; demons and diagnostic codes; anointing and ambiguous loss. his collection—which is as shocking as a tympanic rupture and as haunting as a library of unwanted wedding dresses—makes an invaluable contribution to medical humanities, especially its exploration of the diagnosis and treatment of mental health conditions."
—Jonathan H. Marks, Bioethics Program Director, Penn State