Poet Biographies
Todd Davis
Todd Davis, winner of the Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Prize, teaches creative writing, environmental studies, and American literature at Penn State University's Altoona College. His poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and have appeared in such journals and magazines as The North American Review, The Iowa Review, Indiana Review, The Gettysburg Review, The Christian Science Monitor, 5 AM, West Branch, River Styx, Arts & Letters, Quarterly West, Green Mountains Review, Poetry East, Orion, The Nebraska Review, and Image. He is the author of three books of poetry, The Least of These (Michigan State University Press, forthcoming), Some Heaven (Michigan State University Press, 2007), and Ripe (Bottom Dog Press, 2002), as well as co-editor of Making Poems: 40 Poems with Commentary by the Poets (State University of New York Press, forthcoming). His poems have been featured on the radio by Garrison Keillor on The Writer's Almanac and by Marion Roach on The Naturalist's Datebook, as well as by Ted Kooser in his syndicated newspaper column American Life in Poetry.
K. A. Hays
A native of southeast Pennsylvania , K. A. Hays is the author of Dear Apocalypse (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2009). Poems from the book appear or are forthcoming in Best American Poetry 2009, The Yale Anthology of Younger American Poetry, The Missouri Review, Best New Poets 2007, Gray's Sporting Journal, New Orleans Review, and Southern Review. Hays is also a fiction writer whose short stories have appeared in Gulf Coast, Fugue, Cimarron Review, and other magazines. She read English literature at Bucknell and Oxford universities, earned an M.F.A. in the Literary Arts at Brown, and currently holds the 2007-2010 Stadler Emerging Writer Fellowship at Bucknell University. She is at work on a second collection of poetry, work from which has appeared in The Iowa Review, Poetry Northwest, Beloit Poetry Journal, and elsewhere.
James Hoch
Prior to teaching, James Hoch was a dishwasher, cook, dockworker, social worker and shepherd. His poems have appeared in Slate, Kenyon Review, Gettysburg, Ninth Letter, Carolina Quarterly, Virginia Quarterly Review and many others. They have been nominated many times for the Pushcart Prize. He is the recipient of fellowships and scholarships from Bread Loaf, Sewanee, and Summer Literary Seminars, and received a 2007 NEA grant as well as a grant from the PA Council on the Arts. Miscreants will be published by WW Norton in June, 2007. A Parade of Hands won the Gerald Cable Award and was published in March 2003 by Silverfish Review Press. Originally from Collingswood, NJ, he resides in Mahwah, NJ with his wife and son. He has taught at Franklin and Marshall College and Lynchburg College. Currently, he teaches at Ramapo College of NJ.
Philip Miller
Philip Miller's poetry has appeared in many magazines and journals, such as Chelsea, 5AM, Gargoyle, The Georgia Review, Poetry, Poetry Wales, and Rattapallax. He is author of several poetry chapbooks and six collections. The most recent, The Casablanca Fan, was published by Spartan Press. He lives in Mt Union, PA where he is contributing editor for Big City Lit and edits The Same.
Ed Ochester
Ed Ochester is the editor of the Pitt Poetry Series of the University of Pittsburgh Press, as well as the founding editor of the literary magazine 5 AM. A professor emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh, he is former director of Pitt's creative writing program and a core faculty member of the Bennington College MFA Writing Seminars. Ochester has received many awards for his work, including the George Garrett Award from the Association of Writers and Writing Programs.
Lee Upton
Lee Upton is the author of eleven books—five of poetry, most recently Undid in the Land of Undone, and four of literary criticism, as well as one co-authored children's book and a forthcoming novella, The Guide to the Flying Island. Her poetry has appeared in Best American Poetry 2008, The New Republic, American Poetry Review, The Atlantic, Harvard Review, New England Review, Poetry, and many other magazines and anthologies. She has published over forty articles and essays about literature.
Her awards include the Pushcart Prize, the National Poetry Series Award, two awards from the Poetry Society of America, and the Miami University Novella Award. She is the Writer-in-Residence and a professor of English at Lafayette College.
Joe Weil
Joe Weil up in Elizabeth, New Jersey and was described by The New York Times as personifying that town: "working-class, irreverent, modest, but open to the world and filled with a wealth of possibilities."
When his mother died of cancer when he was 17, he dropped out of Rutgers University to care for his ill father, a former boxer and glue-factory worker who became alcoholic. After his father's death, Weil became homeless. He found work in factories, and eventually found long-term work at National Tool. He currently teaches at Binghamton University.
In 2008, Weil published his 7th and 8th books of poetry, Painting the Christmas Trees (Texas A & M University Press) and What Remains (Nightshade Press). Early in 2009, Weil was awarded the Crown of the Bald Irish Poets Society, a small but exclusive group founded by the late actor Peter Boyle for his poem, "The Shine Off My Old Da's Head Lights the Way to Christ."
Gabriel Welsch
Gabriel Welsch is author of Dirt and All Its Dense Labor. His work appears in New Letters, Georgia Review, Tar River Poetry, Harvard Review, Chautauqua, Ascent, Mid-American Review, Missouri Review and elsewhere, including several anthologies, and he regularly publishes book reviews. His work has earned support from the Pennsylvania Arts Council and the Thoreau Residency/Toledo Botanical Garden. He teaches writing occasionally at the Chautauqua Institution, works as assistant vice president of marketing at Juniata College, and lives in Huntingdon, PA, with his family.
Jerry Wemple
Jerry Wemple is the author of two poetry collections: You Can See It from Here (Lotus Press, 2000), selected by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Yusef Komunyakaa as winner of the Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Award, and The Civil War in Baltimore (Word Press, 2005). Wemple is co-editor of the anthology Common Wealth: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania (PSU Press, 2005). His poems, essays, and reviews have been published in numerous journals and anthologies including 5AM, The Connecticut Review, West Branch, Ninth Letter, and The Same. He is editor of the Watershed: The Journal of the Susquehanna, an interdisciplinary publication focused on the Susquehanna River region of upstate New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. Wemple is the recipient of a Fellowship in Literature from the Pennsylvania Council of the Arts, and received Pushcart Prize nominations in for both poetry and creative nonfiction. He teaches in the creative writing program at Bloomsburg University.