Poet, Editor, Teacher

You're likely to find me wandering around historic cemeteries, documenting epitaphs and memorial monuments, or touring national parks and forests to photograph interpretive signs that describe natural phenomena and historical events. I'm fascinated by the stories these places can tell, and the words and images chosen when space is at a premium. In my own work, I use the languages of these sites to interrogate our relationship with the natural world, which acts as a point of convergence between memory and experience, transience and permanence, and the living and the dead.

I received my MFA from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities; I also hold an MA in Humanities from the University of Chicago and a BA in Writing Seminars and English from Johns Hopkins University. My creative work has been supported by residencies at the Anderson Center at Tower View, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, SAFTA's Firely Farms, and Willapa Bay AiR.

Along with poets Meryl DePasquale, Opal C. McCarthy, and Molly Sutton Kiefer, I collaborate as part of the Caldera Poetry Collective (below). We've written a chapbook manuscript, Kept Ghosts: A Choral Aubade, as well as collaborative poems (see Poetry), and we have other projects in the works.

In my professional life, I've been a freelance editor and proofreader for more than a decade. I also teach first-year writing and professional writing at Framingham State University, where I'm an assistant professor of English.

If you'd like a copy of my CV, please contact me.

Colleen Coyne

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