Betsy Sholl

Betsy Sholl has published eight collections of poetry, most recently Otherwise Unseeable (University of Wisconsin Press, 2014), which won the 2015 Maine Literary Award for Poetry. Other books include: Rough Cradle (Alice James Books, 2009) and Late Psalm (University of Wisconsin, 2004). Don't Explain won the 1997 Felix Pollak Prize from the University of Wisconsin, and The Red Line won the 1991 AWP Prize for Poetry. Her chapbooks include Pick A Card, winner of the Maine Chapbook Competition in 1991, and Betsy Sholl: Greatest Hits, 1974-2004, (Pudding House Publications) and Coastal Bop (Oyster River Press). She was a founding member of Alice James Books and published three earlier collections with them: Changing Faces (1974), Appalachian Winter (1978) and Rooms Overhead (1986). Among her awards are a fellowship from the National Endowment of the Arts, and two Maine Writer's Fellowships. Her work has been included in several anthologies, including Letters to America, Contemporary American Poetry on Race, Best American Poetry and Best Spiritual Writing, and in a range of journals, including Field, Triquarterly, Brilliant Corners, The Kenyon Review, The Massachusetts Review, Beloit Poetry Journal. She has been a visiting poet at the University of Pittsburgh and Bucknell University. She lives in Portland, Maine, and teaches in the MFA in Writing Program of Vermont College of Fine Arts.