POET. COMIC. STORYTELLER.

Rick Christiansen is a former corporate executive, stand-up comedian, actor, and director. His work has been published or is forthcoming in many journals and publications. Spartan Press published his first full-length collection, Bone Fragments, in 2024. His new collection, Not a Hero is  now available.. He is the former co-host of SpoFest and is a member of The Writer’s Place and The St. Louis Writers Guild. He was recently married and lives in Missouri.

"Whitman wrote, 'Who touches this book touches a man.' When we pick up Rick Christiansen's powerful and elegant Bone Fragments, we also touch a man's history and character. 

Christiansen's life, his alcoholic, abusive mother, the younger brother he stole groceries to feed, and now, his relationship with the much-loved grandson he is raising." 

-George Franklin, author of Remote Cities and first prize winner of the 2023 W.B. Yeats Poetry Prize.

"Rick Christiansen is a gifted writer who knows how to pull you in and keep you reading. His Bone Fragments is a fine collection of poems that got under my feet and made me feel a world of emotions. He digs deep, exposes horror, unearths marvels and tugs at the roots of hope and pathos with a penetrating humanity."

-John Burroughs, U.S. National Beat Poet Laureate (2022-23) and author of Rattle and Numb

"Rick C. Christiansen is a poet whose time has come. His long overdue debut full-length collection Bone Fragments is well crafted, heartfelt, and at times almost chillingly honest about the things we all go through in this life, if we live long enough to tell the tale, and thankfully for us, Rick is still out there, his words laid bare on these pages, guiding us home with the truth as his only compass."

-John Dorsey,  Author of Pocatello Wildflower