Colleen M. Webster
Havre de Grace, MD

Born in Sunnyvale, California on the last day of summer, I grew up outside of Washington, D.C. and received my Bachelor's degree in English from the College of Notre Dame of Maryland. After completing my Master's in English from the University of Delaware, I returned to appease my love for water and sun by living on the nearby Gunpowder River for six years. I moved into the city of Baltimore for four years where I lived on the industrial shoreline of our harbor and near several of our great museums. Now, on the shore of the Susquehanna River. I live, work, and write in a small town at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay.

My influences are mainly 20th century American women poets, including Sharon Olds, Carolyn Forché, Adrienne Rich, Muriel Rukeyser, Robin Becker, Jane Kenyon, and Marilyn Krysl as well as other women writers who have taught me to love the shape and sound of words. Outside of poetry, I love the work of Jeanette Winterson, early Rita Mae Brown, E. Annie Proulx, Annie Dillard, Anne LaMott, and Alix Kates Shulman. Contemporary male poets whom I enjoy and learn from include Mark Doty, Li-Young Lee, Philip Levine, Thomas Lynch, and Billy Collins. Recently I have discovered the new naturalist writers Scott Russell Sanders, Terry Tempest Williams, Michael Pollan and humorists David Sedaris and Bill Bryson.

For the past fifteen years I have given local readings and published work in local, national and international journals. Currently I am becoming a Master Naturalist through local park programs and Johns Hopkins Environmental Studies classes. I teach full time for Harford Community College, kayak and mountain bike, and compete in marathons, biathlons, and other races. Links to recent publications can be found at Milkweed Editions, Poetry Midwest, Moondance and Disquieting Muses Quarterly Review.