About

Kristin Lueke is a Chicana poet, essayist, and creative strategist.

She is the co-founder and Strategic Director of Field of Practice, an experimental, women-owned strategic design studio focused on high-impact social, political, and cultural identity work. The studio has been honored by Fast Company, the Webbys, Communication Arts, and the STA 100, and featured in New City and Faculty Magazine.

Kristin is the author of the chapbooks here i show you a human heart (2025) and (in)different math (Dancing Girl Press, 2013). Her poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, as well as Best New Poets and Best of the Net. It’s been featured in Poem-a-Day and Read a Little Poem, and published in Sixth Finch, Wildness, HAD, LETTERS, Variant Lit, Okay Donkey, Frozen Sea, Maudlin House, and Heavy Feather Review, among others.

Select Writing
A woman with dark hair in a braid, wearing a white dress with a zipper, large gold and pink earrings, and brown boots, sitting on a black step stool against a plain, light-colored wall, smiling and looking down.

She was a finalist for the 2024 Porter House Review Poetry Prize, and received the Morris W. Kroll Poetry Prize from Princeton University, where she earned an AB in English. She also holds an MA from the University of Chicago. 

Kristin lives in Cerrillos, New Mexico with her husband, novelist Kyle Beachy. She writes at www.theanimaleats.com. 

Capabilities + Services

+ Brand Strategy + Verbal Identity
+ Campaign + Communication Strategy
+ Workshop Facilitation
+ Adaptive/Strategic Planning
+ Website Content Strategy
+ Copywriting + Editing
+ Storyboarding + Scriptwriting
+ Experience + Engagement Strategy
+ Naming
+ Research + Discovery

SELECT CLIENTS

Terra Foundation for American Art
Native American Workforce Partners
Center for Reflective Intelligence
Collaborative for Reproductive + Gender Equity
Planned Parenthood
Disability Cultural Center, University of Illinois at Chicago
Watermelon Pictures
Braver Collective
Friends Fiduciary
Chicago United Solidarity Project
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Almond + Fig
Seekers Coffee
Karam Foundation
Dentologie
Community Physicians
Hologram Sciences
Hot Chi
Cedars Restaurant
Onward
Chicago Freedom School
Farmer's Fridge
Girls Garage
The Garage, Northwestern University
Stanford Art Museum
Occidental College
Bemidji State University
Santa Clara University
Plant Chicago
Shanghai American School
City of Chicago

Props, Talks + Readings

2026 — Fast Company Innovation by Design
2026 — STA 100, Five Years in the Field Zine
2026 — Always Crashing, Chicago
2026 — Soil and Stars Podcast
2025 — Pushcart Prize Nominee, Glass Poetry
2025 — Best of the Net Nominee, Epiphany Magazine
2025 — Pushcart Prize Nominee, Okay Donkey
2025 — Pushcart Prize Nominee, Always Crashing
2025 — Artist Inc Fellowship, MidAmerica Arts Alliance, ABQ
2025 — AWP Off-Site Reading, Epiphany Magazine, Los Angeles
2025 — Ghost Harmonics, Philadelphia
2024 — Pushcart Prize Nominee, Epiphany Magazine
2024 — Best New Poets Nominee, Frozen Sea
2024 — Porter House Review Poetry Prize Finalist
2024 — Communication Arts Advertising Annual
2024 — Faculty Issue 1 Feature
2024 — Design as Activism Symposium, Art Design Chicago
2024 — Words // Friends
2023 — Communication Arts FRESH Feature
2023 — Brand New Conference
2023 — Underscore Podcast
2023 — Designing Your Life, Northwestern University
2023 — Santa Fe Reporter Spring Poetry Search Runner Up
2022 — Best of the Net Nominee, HAD
2022 — MAKE Lit y Luz Festival
2021 — Creating Community, OutWrite DC
2021 — Business of Design, Columbia College
2021 — Best of the Net Nominee, Kissing Dynamite
2020 — AIGA West Michigan Design Week Keynote
2020 — FastCo Innovation by Design, Onward
2019 — Embarc Chicago Workshop
2019 — First Round Conference
2019 — Mission Creek Festival
2019 — CreativeBloc Conference
2019 — Design Activism + Innovation , Institute of Design
2018 — Hopscotch Design Festival 
2018 — AIGA Chicago: Signs of the Resistance 
2017 — AIGA Chicago: Design for Good

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the animal eats is a monthly-ish newsletter with poems and possibility. Sign up with your email address to receive new transmissions directly to your inbox. Subscriptions are free, with options for paid tiers to receive sweet perks like free zines and year-end poetry playlists.