KIELAR Marzanna Bogumiła

Born on 8 February 1963 in Gołdap; daughter of the businessman and owner of two iron foundries Józef Zenon Kisielewski and the nurse Łucja, née Domitrz. She completed her advanced secondary education at Gołdap Grammar School in 1981. She studied philosophy at the University of Warsaw (UW) from 1982, graduating with a master's degree in 1988. She made her debut in 1985 with the poem Wieczór u znajomych (An evening with friends), which was published in the periodical "Przegląd Koniński" (no. 48). It won the National Poetry Competition Milestone Prize (Milowy Słup). She was appointed assistant at the Department for Artistic Methodology and Education at the M. Grzegorzewska Higher School of Special Education (since 2000 the Maria Grzegorzewska University – Akademia Pedagogiki Specjalnej im. M. Grzegorzewskiej, APS) in Warsaw. She continued to write poetry, with her poems winning prizes in various literary competitions, including the main prize in the J. Śpiewak and A. Kamieńska National Poetry Competition in 1991. She has published in periodicals including "Czas Kultury" (since 1991), "Kresy" (since 1992), "Borussia" (since 1992), "Kwartalnik Artystyczny" (since 1995), "NaGłos" (since 1995), "Krasnogruda" (since 1995; she was also a member of its editorial board), "Zeszyty Literackie" (since 1997), and "LiteRacje" (since 2010). In 1995, she edited volumes of poetry in the series Biblioteka Pisarzy Sarajewa (Library of Sarajevo Writers) and Biblioteka Krasnogrudy (Library of Krasnogruda), published by the Borderland Foundation (Fundacja Pogranicze) in Sejny. She has been involved in various literary festivals and poetry events, both in Poland and abroad, including the Vilenica International Literary Festival (Slovenia), where she won the 1995 Vilenica Crystal poetry prize. She has spent two month-long fellowships, in 1997 and 2001, at the Baltic Centre for Writers and Translators in Visby, Sweden. In 1998 she was awarded a year-long fellowship by the Polish Ministry of Culture and Art, before spending six months on a residency at Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart. She has also participated in literary festivals in Israel (1995), Germany (1998), Latvia (2001), Czechia (2001), Sweden (2003) and France (2004 and 2006). She has represented Poland at the Book Fairs in Frankfurt, Leipzig and Gothenburg. In 2001, she defended her doctoral thesis, Symboliczne zawłaszczanie indywidualnych przestrzeni życiowych jako sposób tworzenia małych ojczyzn (The Symbolic Appropriation of Individual Life Spaces as a Way of Forming Small Homelands) at the Faculty of Humanities at the Nicolaus Copernicus University (UMK) in Torun. It was supervised by Prof. Andrzej Góralski. She spent three months in 2002 on the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa, USA. She was appointed lecturer at the Department of Artistic Methodology and Education at the Institute of Pedagogy at the Maria Grzegorzewska University (APS) in Warsaw. She joined the Polish Writers' Association (SPP) in 1999 and the Polish PEN Club in 2000. In 2000, she was awarded the prestigious "Paszport Polityki" prize for her poetry by the weekly magazine "Polityka". In 2005, she was again awarded a fellowship by the Ministry of Culture and Art, this time for six months. The same year she was appointed deputy chair of the newly-founded Vox Humana Association, which sought to combat social exclusion. She left the Association in 2009. She worked at the Centre for Heuristics at the Department for Artistic Methodology and Education at APS from 2006 to 2015. She spent one month in 2007 at the International Writers Workshop on a fellowship awarded by the Hong Kong Baptist University. Between 2010 and 2014, she was a member of the Programme Council of the quarterly "LiteRacje". She was awarded a habilitation degree in 2013 for her study Integralna wizja Kena Wilbera i jej zastosowanie w edukacji (Ken Wilber's Integral Theory and its Application in Education). She was appointed associate professor at the Institute of Education at APS the same year, also receiving the APS Rector's Prize (second class) the same year. In 2013, she was also appointed to the Programme Council at Zachęta – National Gallery of Art in Warsaw. She was appointed associate professor at the Chair of Religious Education and Culture at the Christian Theological Academy (ChAT) in Warsaw. She visited several countries, including Italy, Sweden, Israel, China, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Turkey, France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Slovenia, Latvia, Czechia, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Lithuania and Norway. She was awarded the Bronze Cross of Merit in 2007. She married the graphic artist Cezary Władysław Kielar in 1983. They divorced in 1999. She has a daughter Paula Agnieszka (b. 1984). She lives in Warsaw.