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Winning the Wick Poetry Chapbook Prize when I was a student at Ohio University was a remarkable experience. At that time, I’d only had one poem published in a magazine (the chapbook’s title poem, in fact), so Maggie Anderson was really one of the first people to read any of my work who wasn’t my teacher or classmate; I still remember her call to let me know my manuscript had been selected—I was so completely shocked and excited.
I was, at that time, quite unsure about pursuing poetry. Winning the Wick Prize really gave me an incredible boost and pushed me to take myself more seriously as a writer. After my chapbook was published, I had many invitations to submit my work to magazines, to give readings, and to visit with classes studying the book. I remain tremendously grateful to the Wick Poetry Center for the part my chapbook played in creating these and other opportunities to share my work with audiences and to develop as a poet. But I am more grateful still for the support and confidence that the award represented (and still represents) for me. Coming at a crucial time when I might as easily have given up writing, winning the Wick Prize helped give me the confidence to continue writing poetry.
Since my chapbook, In The Arbor, was published in 1997, I completed a Master of Fine Arts degree in Poetry at Ohio State University and a Master of Library Science degree from the State University of New York at Buffalo. I am now working as the Curator of Poetry for the Yale Collection of American Literature at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University. My first full-length book of poetry, The Wife of the Left Hand, was published in 2007, and a new chapbook of my work, The Nocturnal Factory, was published in August 2008. I am co-editor of a small poetry publisher, Phylum Press, which publishes chapbooks and pamphlets by younger poets. I remain a committed reader and writer of poetry, but through my professional work I now also have many opportunities to promote poetry among diverse audiences, to encourage research and scholarship about poetry and poets’ lives, and to publish new work by poets I admire.
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