About Gunilla Kester
Swedish-born Gunilla Theander Kester is an award-winning poet and author of If I Were More Like Myself (The Writer's Den, 2015). Her two poetry chapbooks, Mysteries I-XXIII (2011) and Time of Sand and Teeth (2009), were published by Finishing Line Press. She was co-editor of The Empty Chair: Love and Loss in the Wake of Flight 3407 (2010), and The Still Empty Chair: More Writings Inspired by Flight 3407 (2011).
Dr. Kester has published numerous poems in Swedish anthologies and magazines, including Bonniers Litterära Magasin, Sweden’s most prestigious literary magazine. A Fulbright Scholar, she authored a study entitled Writing the Subject: Bildung and the African American Text (New York: Peter Lang, 1995, 2nd ed. 1997), and has published many articles in academic journals and anthologies.
She lives in Buffalo, NY where she hosts the Buffalo Corner Reading Series as well as community writing groups. She teaches, studies, and performs classical guitar. She has poems recently published or forthcoming in After Happy Hour, Atlanta Review, Book of Matches, Cider Press Review, Concho River Review, Doubly Mad Journal, Great Lakes Review, I-70 Review, Nixes Mate Review, Oberon Poetry, Ocean State Review, On the Seawall, Pendemics Journal, Pirene’s Fountain, Plainsongs, Redactions, San Pedro River Review, Silk Road Review, Slipstream, South Florida Poetry Journal, Stone Poetry Quarterly, SWWIM, The American Journal of Poetry, The Citron Review, The MacGuffin, The Worchester Review, Tikkun, and Trampoline. Nominated two times for the Pushcart Prize and once for Best of the Net.
Events, Awards, Community
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Buffalo Corner Reading Series
The Buffalo Corner Reading Series gives a voice to authors, both at in-person and virtual events.
Gunilla was asked to initiate and develop this program in 2019 and writers and appreciators have been regularly ever since.
Buffalo Corner Reading Series is based at Congregation Shir Shalom, a trail-blazing merged Reform and Reconstructionist synagogue, the first in the world, based in Amherst, NY.
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Publications and Awards
Dr. Kester has published many poems in Swedish anthologies and magazines, including Bonniers Litterära Magasin, Sweden’s most prestigious literary magazine.
A Fulbright scholar, she authored a scholarly study entitled, “Writing the Subject: Bildung and the African American Text, “ (New York: Peter Lang, 1995, 2nd ed. 1997), and published many articles in academic journals and anthologies. “Time of Sand and Teeth,” was published by Finishing Line Press as part of its New Women Series and was nominated for both a Pushcart Prize and the Jean Pedrick Chapbook Award.
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Community Support
The Kester family discusses why they made a commitment to the Foundation for Jewish Philanthropies’ LIFE &LEGACY® at Buffalo initiative in 2020.
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Typography of Women
Typography of Women was a four-part event that included two exhibitions, a live musical theater performance, and a public forum.