Charlene left home for Ohio State, later returning there for graduate school. She met her husband Pat during anti-war demonstrations at OSU. She has a stepson and two daughters and a son, who all shared their home with a series of dogs and cats. After not writing for a decade while raising kids, she found herself buying reams of paper; poems and prose followed.

Charlene taught high school English for ten years, then was a professor of English at Columbus College of Art and Design for more than thirty. She has received Ohio and Greater Columbus arts council grants, two prizes from The Poetry Society of America, and her poems have appeared in various literary magazines. She wrote a study of Harpo Marx in the thirteen Marx Brothers films called Harpo Marx as Trickster. Her books of poems are Frankenstein�s Flowers and Flowering Bruno: a Dography (with illustrations by Susan Josephson). Her poetry chapbooks are Mischief and Charlene Fix: Greatest Hits. Charlene workshops with The House of Toast poets, co-coordinates Hospital Poets at OSU, and is an activist for Middle East peace.