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Janna Knittel (pronoun preference: use name) lives in Minnesota but sometimes still calls the Pacific Northwest "home." Janna earned an MFA from the University of Minnesota.

Janna is the author of Real Work (Nodin Press, 2022), a finalist for the 2023 Minnesota Book Award in poetry, and the chapbook Fish & Wild Life (Finishing Line Press, 2018 ).

Additional publications include poems in Adirondack Review, Blueline, Conduit, Constellations, Cold Mountain Review, Jabberwock Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Pleiades, Up North Lit, Split Rock Review, Tiny Seed, and Whale Road Review and in the anthologies Blue: A Humana Obscura Anthology (Humana Obscura, 2025), Broad Wings, Long Legs: A Rookery of Heron Poems (North Star Press, 2024); The Experiment Will Not Be Bound (Unbound Editions, 2023); and Waters Deep: A Great Lakes Anthology (Split Rock Review, 2018).

Book reviews Janna has written in have appeared in Rain Taxi, Pleiades, and Great River Review.

Awards and recognition include grants from the Minnesota State Arts Board and the University of Minnesota College of Liberal Arts; being a finalist for the New Women's Voices series from Finishing Line Press, the Up North Lit poetry prize, and the Rita Dove Poetry Award from the Center for Women Writers; and two James Wright Awards from the American Academy of Poets.

Janna has taught writing and literature at the University of Oregon, Oregon State University, Southern Oregon University, the University of Kansas, Saint Cloud State University, the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities, St. Olaf College, and the University of Minnesota - Crookston

Janna has taught writing workshops at the American School of Storytelling and  North Suburban Center for the Arts) (formerly Banfill-Locke Center for the Arts), and was the Curator of the 2018 Banfill-Locke Reading Series.

Janna Knittel is a fiscal year 2025 recipient of a Creative Individuals grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.