Rutherford Arts Alliance congratulates newly appointed Murfreesboro arts laureates Kara Jill Kemp, Performing Arts Laureate, and Mike James, Poet Laureate.
Kara Kemp is perhaps best known locally as the founder of Bloom Stage, a quarterly multi-genre showcase centered on storytelling and also featuring live music, art, poetry and more. She's also the force behind United We Style, a storytelling fundraiser that has benefited the United Way for ten years. A middle Tennessee native, Kara conducts popular creative retreats and coaches others in leveraging their personal and organizational narratives.
Mike James's 21st collection of poetry will be out this spring from Red Hawk Publishing. His poems appear in hundreds of journals, and he's contributed to the literary community as an associate editor of Kentucky Review and Unbroken. He has read and performed his work at universities and performance venues throughout the country, including Poetry in the Boro. A South Carolina native, Mike moved here with his family several years ago for his job with Nissan. Sample some of his work at As It Ought To Be magazine.
We're awarding a complimentary annual membership to each of these creatives, in honor of their achievement and in recognition of how the RAA's roots trace back, in part, to a project of the 2017 inaugural Laureate team.
We look forward to sharing Kara and Mike’s creative outreach with you in the coming months!
Images courtesy the Cultural Arts Murfreesboro Facebook page
Banner image credit: unsplash/@sploshd
