Alison Swan

Alison Swan’s poems and essay have appeared in many publications, including her poetry chapbooks Before the Snow Moon and Dog Heart, the recent award-winning anthologies Elemental: A Collection of Michigan Creative Nonfiction, Ghost Fishing: An Eco-Justice Poetry Anthology, Here: Women Writing on the Upper Peninsula, and Poetry in Michigan/Michigan in Poetry, the journals North American Review and TriQuarterly, and The Michigan Poet broadside series and anthology. In the summer of 2013, Alice Greene & Company published her second poetry chapbook Before the Snow Moon—a fine-art collaboration with Jean Buescher Bartlett and Melanie Boyle. Dog Heart, her first poetry chapbook, also a collaboration with Bartlett and Boyle, was released in 2011.  Fresh Water:  Women Writing on the Great Lakes (Michigan State University Press), Alison Swan’s brain child and labor of love, is a 2007 Library of Michigan Notable Book. Among her other awards are a Mesa Refuge Writers Fellowship and the Michigan Environmental Council’s Petoskey Prize for Environmental Leadership. Her poem Porch Swing (Bloodroot Press, 1997), an early collaboration with book artist Jean Buescher Bartlett, has been acquired by the New York Public Library and other rare book collections.

An inspiring  speaker and writing workshop leader, Alison Swan holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Michigan and teaches in the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability at Western Michigan University. She has been active in efforts to protect and preserve the Saugatuck Dunes on the southeastern shore of Lake Michigan since 2001. She lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Click here for interviews, here for upcoming events, and here for Alison Swan’s blog.