Swedish-born Gunilla Theander Kester is the author of two poetry chapbooks Mysteries I-XXIII (2011) and Time of Sand and Teeth (2009) and co-editor with Gary Earl Ross of The Still Empty Chair: More Writings Inspired by Flight 3407 (2011) and The Empty Chair: Love and Loss in the Wake of Flight 3407 (2010).  Her CD “Songs of Healing and Hope” with Cantor Susan Wehle was released in 2007.  She teaches classical guitar at The Amherst School of Music.

Mysteries I-XXIII

Mysteries I-XXIII is a poetic tribute to Cantor Susan Alice Wehle who died tragically in the crash of flight 3407.  “Susan taught me a lot; without her, I wouldn’t have survived losing her.”

The Empty Chair: Love and Loss in the Wake of Flight 3407 and The Still Empty Chair: More Writings Inspired by Flight 3407 are anthologies of memoirs, stories, poems, letters, and photos honoring the victims of Flight 3407 which crashed in Clarence Center just outside Buffalo, NY, on February 12, 2009, killing all 49 people on board and one man in his house on the ground.  Both are dedicated to the victims of that flight and to their families and friends.

Time of Sand and Teeth was published by Finishing Line Press as part of its New Women Series and was nominated for both a Pushcart Prize and the Jean Pedrick Chapbook Award.

Her full-length manuscript Shiri’s Piano was a Finalist for the May Swenson Poetry Award 2009 as was The Mountain: Grieving for Harmony, a Finalist for the Colorado Prize in poetry in 2005.  Her poem “I Came to Your Country: Eva’s Song” was nominated for a 2010 Pushcart Prize from the editors of Not Just Air.  Her poem “Shiri’s Piano” won an International Publishers Prize from Atlanta Review and was published in its International Issue, October 2008, distributed in over 120 countries; “In My Home Town Martin Luther is Still King” was a Finalist in New Millennium Writing, 2008.  In 2006, her poem “Day Dream” won “Special Recognition” from In Other Words.

Her poem “Time of Sand and Teeth” won the Gival Press Tri-Language English Competition in 2001, and she has been a Finalist in The Glimmer Train Open.  Her poems have appeared in Not Just Air, Oberon, Radiance, and The Buffalo News.  She has poems in Waging Words for Peace; Buffalo Poets Against War (ed. by Chuck Culhane), Poetic Voices Without Borders, I and Poetic Voices Without Borders, II (both ed. by Robert L. Giron), winner of the 2009 National Best Book Award for Fiction & Literature: Anthologies, sponsored by USA Book News.  She was invited to submit a poem for Nickel City Nights (ed. by Gary Earl Ross) and to write a blurb for Mr. Ross’ new novel Blackbird Rising: A Novel of the American Spirit released in 2009. 

Dr. Kester has published many poems in Swedish anthologies and magazines, including Bonniers Litterära Magasin, Sweden’s most prestigious literary magazine.

A Fulbright scholar, she authored a scholarly study entitled Writing the Subject: Bildung and the African American Text (New York: Peter Lang, 1995, 2nd ed. 1997), and published many articles in academic journals and anthologies.

An accomplished guitarist, she teaches classical guitar at The Amherst School of Music. In 2010, she instituted The Cantor Susan Wehle Memorial Scholarship in Classical Guitar awarded annually.   She has served as Vice President for The Buffalo Guitar Society since 1997.  She has pursued studies in the classical guitar with the following teachers: Istvan Dunai (Sweden), Mark Maxwell (PSU), William Stewart (UNC), Mir Ali, and Distinguished Professor James Piorkowski (SUNY Fredonia). She has participated in master classes with the following master guitarists:

Mir Ali

Stephen Aron (University of Akron and Oberlin Conservatory of Music)

Vania Del Monaco (Spain)

Richard Falkenstein (Buffalo Guitar Quartet)

Nicholas Goluses (Eastman School of Music)

Julian Gray (Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University)

Eli Kassner  (University of Toronto and The Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto)

James Kurzdorfer (Villa Maria, Buffalo, NY)

Jeffrey McFadden (The Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto)

Alfredo Panebianco (Spain)

Ronald Pearl (Loyola University)

John Sawers (Buffalo Guitar Quartet)

Stuart Vokes (Fairmont School of Music, Ohio)

Ann Waller (Bienen School of Music, Northwestern University)

Stanley Yeates (Austin Peay State University, home of Tennessee's Center of Excellence for the Creative Arts)

Luis Zea (Instituto Universitario de Estudios Musicales (IUDEM))

Currently, she is collaborating with Professor Piorkowski writing a book about music, the guitar, and pedagogy named Be the Giraffe. This 300-page manuscript is actively seeking a publisher at the moment.

Dr. Kester has performed classical guitar and poetry at the following venues:

University of Buffalo

SUNY College at Buffalo

Canisius College

Daemen College

Villa Maria

Center for Inquiry

Randall Memorial Baptist Church

Carnegie Arts Center

Impact Gallery

Babeville (Buffalo, NY)

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Pennsylvania State University

Eastman School of Music

Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute

Westminster Presbyterian Church

Rensselaerville Library and Conkling Hall

Clarence Public Library

Congregation Shir Shalom

As a poet or guitarist, or both, Dr. Kester has been invited to participate in/at:

Hadassah

VOICE – Buffalo

Passion in Progress Festival

English Departments at Canisius

Daemen

University of Buffalo and SUNY College at Buffalo

Temple Beth Am

Yom HaShoah

The Holocaust Resource Center

The Jewish Community Center

The Jewish Federation

Mill Middle School

Frontier High School International Club

Hardware Café Reading Series

Gray Hair Reading Series

The Screening Room Reading Series

The RIC Series at Daemen

The Center for Inquiry

The Anne Frank Project

Hudson Valley Writers’ Center

Flight 3407 Memorial Service (2011)

Weinberg Campus Annual Memorial Service

Congregation Shir Shalom

She participates in the Roswell Park Cancer Institute Music-in-the-Lobby program, performing monthly since 2007.