The Writing Lives Story Project

Hi Everyone!

I’m Jessica Jewell, former Wicketeer (though most of us who have been welcomed into the Wick Poetry Center family will always consider ourselves Wicketeers)! 

I became involved with the Wick Poetry Center in 2006 as the Wick Assistant and in 2007 as the Wick Fellow, and I was in the first graduating class of the NEOMFA.  As a student of Wick Chapbook and First Book winner, Karen Kovacik, my ties to Wick began a little earlier however. 

It is truly because of the Wick Poetry Center, my fellow Wicketeers, David Hassler and Maggie Anderson (one of my personal poetry heroes before I even was accepted in the NEOMFA), that I have become much of the person who sits here today writing this little blurb.

During my time at Wick I met some amazing poets.  I will never forget hearing Jean Valentine read, or having lunch with Philip Levine when he spent five or so minutes interpreting Anele Rubin’s dreams. 

I will also never forget all of the wonderful events and activities that occurred during my time there.  Readings.  Workshops.  Performances.  Outreach.  The dance party at AWP in Atlanta with David Hassler, Travis Hessman, Valerie Suffron, Jana Russ and other NEOMFAers and Wicketeers.  The prickly pear cacti tattoos at AWP Austin with former Wick Outreach Assistant, Lindsay Bennett.  And of course I will always cherish the time spent touring Bisbee, Arizona with Robert Wick during a summer workshop at his home and how we all danced in a conga line in Nogales, Mexico. 

The Wick Poetry Center provided me with so many wonderful opportunities and experiences, and both the Center and the people involved with it wholly enhanced my young writing life. 

Though I still write and publish poetry, I am currently living in Budapest, Hungary where I write for my travel website, Budajest, and am working on projects in both fiction and non-fiction. 









 

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