Kristen has been drawn to word magnets from the first time she saw them. Her first set of magnetic words was a gift from her Auntie Ruthie. The magnets lived on her refrigerator door, where they were constantly arranged and rearranged–by Kristen and by guests–into funny phrases, messages, etc.

Then, in 2019, at Oregon State University’s Shotpouch Collaborative Writing Residency, she spent time her first day at the cabin orienting, taking in the solitude of the cabin and creating a fridge poem with the magnets available before her middle grade writing partner, Janine Pibal, arrived.

Fast forward to 2020, and the stay-at-home orders surrounding the Covid-19 pandemic gave her pause to cast about for more diversions.  Kristen bolstered her magnet collection with several new word sets, including a Brothers Grimm set, garden poet, book lover and music lover sets. Over time, she added an Italian-language set (yes, Kristen practices Italian so that one day she can listen to Italian opera without relying so heavily on sub-titles). She was gifted a Spanish-language set by a friend.

She began creating daily poems to help alleviate the stress and strangeness of the stay-at-home order. For fun, she shared her fairy tale retelling poems on social media and found a devout and enthusiastic audience for them. At first, she created loosely fairy tale based stand-alone poems based. Then she began “Into the Woods,” based on  Little Red Riding Hood. Red had quite a lot to say and the poem stretched into a series. 

Fans of the fridge poems have repeatedly requested a book of the poems, which she began by consulting Kate Wolford, then Editor in Chief of Enchanted Conversation (now renamed The Fairy Tale Magazine).

The chapbook, now titled after one of her fridge poems, has had its first printing in November 2024.

Here is “Into the Woods,” the first in the Little Red Riding Hood Series that began Kristen’s fridge poem play in earnest.