Poetry & Conversation: Joelle Biele, Ann Bracken, & Ann Quinn

Joelle Biele's newest book is Tramp (LSU Press, 2018);  she is also the author of White Summer and Broom and the editor of Elizabeth Bishop and The New Yorker: The Complete Correspondence. A Fulbright professor in Germany and Poland, she has received awards from the Maryland State Arts Council and the Poetry Society of America. Her essays and fiction appear in American Poetry Review, Antioch Review, Black Warrior Review, Gettysburg Review, Harvard Review, and New England Review. She has taught American literature and creative writing at Johns Hopkins University, the University of Maryland, Goucher College, the University of Oldenburg, Germany, and Jagiellonian University, Poland. She served as the 2017-2018 Howard County Poetry and Literature Society Writer-in-Residence.

Ann Bracken is an activist with a pen. She has started over more times than she can count and believes that she possesses a strong gene for reinvention driving her desire for change. Ann’s changed her job and her mind, but never wavers from her commitment to family, friends, writing, and social justice. She’s authored two poetry collections — The Altar of Innocence and No Barking in the Hallways: Poems from the Classroom. Ann currently serves as a contributing editor for Little Patuxent Review and runs poetry and writing workshops in libraries, community centers, and prisons. Her poetry and interviews have been published in numerous anthologies and journals. Please visit annbrackenauthor.com.

Ann Quinn’s poetry was selected by Stanley Plumly as first-place winner in the 2015 Bethesda Literary Arts Festival poetry contest, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her work is published in Potomac Review, Little Patuxent Review, Beechwood Review, Haibun Today, and Snapdragon, and is included in the anthology Red Sky: Poetry on the Global Epidemic of Violence Against Women. Ann lives in Maryland with her family where she teaches music and plays clarinet with the Columbia Orchestra. Her degrees are in music performance;  she fell in love with poetry in midlife. Her chapbook, Final Deployment, is published by Finishing Line Press. Please visit online at www.annquinn.net.

Read "When You Were at Children's I Wanted to Go Back to When" by Joelle Biele.
Read "Walking by the School Yard" by Ann Bracken.
Read "Ma" by Ann Quinn.

Recorded On: Thursday, November 1, 2018