Our Roving Ambassador Facilitates the Kristen Deming Haiku Archive

Roberta Beary at Home

THF Roving Ambassador Roberta Beary and husband Frank Stella took an autumnal journey to bring several boxes of the late Kristen Deming’s haiku artifacts to The Haiku Foundation. At the invitation of the Deming family, Roberta spent the past few months visiting Kristen’s home in Bethesda, Maryland, sorting through three floors of all things haiku. Kristen, a former president of The Haiku Society of America, immersed herself in haiku gatherings, both in the U.S. and abroad, including during her extensive stays in Japan and Tunisia with her diplomat husband.

The day’s event was celebrated at a lunch hosted by Jim Kacian, creator and founder of The Haiku Foundation, at the Cork Street Tavern in Winchester, Virginia. At the end of our visit, Jim confirmed that the Kristen Deming Archive would be a permanent resource for haiku scholars.

The photo below shows Jim Kacian and Roberta Beary, holding a washi paper memento of Kristen Deming, containing individually signed haiku of the attendees of a 1990s haiku conference.

Respectfully submitted,
Roberta Beary, THF Roving Ambassador
November 2026

photo credit: The Other Frank Stella