Cedar Koons was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky. She graduated from Duke University with a B.A. in English in 1971 and taught English and creative writing at the high school and college level. From 1988–1993 she was poet in residence at Duke University Medical Center where she edited the chapbooks, I Want to Read You a Poem and They Wrote Us a Poem and led a weekly poetry group in the Duke University Medical School. She served on the board of The North Carolina Writer’s Network and was a member of the Black Socks Poets.
In 1993, Cedar received her M.S.W. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. For thirty years, she worked as a psychotherapist, consultant, and trainer, specializing in the treatment of borderline personality disorder (BPD) using Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) and still maintains a small practice. She published numerous academic and research articles and book chapters on the practice of DBT.
Cedar has published a nonfiction book, The Mindfulness Solution for Intense Emotions: Take Control of BPD with DBT (New Harbinger, 2016), and a novel, Murder at Sleeping Tiger (as C. R. Koons, Camel Press, 2022). Bourbon and Branch Water is her first book of poetry.
Cedar is married to Edward Scheps, a photographer, and they have four children and four grandchildren. They live in Dixon, New Mexico, on a small farm on the Rio Embudo. You can follow Cedar’s occasional blog at www.cedarkoons.com.
Paperback: 72 pages
Publisher: Kelsay Books (February 28, 2023)