Staff and Advisory Board

Director

David Hassler is the author of two books of poems, most recently, Red Kimono, Yellow Barn, for which he was awarded Ohio Poet of the Year 2006. With photographer Gary Harwood, he is the author of Growing Season: The Life of a Migrant Community, which received the Ohioana Book Award, the Carter G. Woodson Honor Book Award, and was a finalist for the Great Lakes Book Award. He is coeditor of two anthologies by the University of Iowa Press, Learning by Heart: Contemporary American Poetry about School and After the Bell: Contemporary American Prose about School, as well as A Place to Grow: Voices and Images of Urban Gardeners. He received a BA from Cornell University and an MFA from Bowling Green State University. His poems have appeared in Prairie Schooner, The Sun, DoubleTake/Points of Entry, Indiana Review, and other journals. He speaks widely at state and national conferences on issues of poetry and education.

Outreach Manager

Nicole Robinson is a former director of high school education and language arts teacher. She teaches poetry workshops as a guest teaching artist in area schools, juvenile detention centers, hospitals and community centers to students of all ages. Her chapbook, The Slop of Giving In, The Melt of Letting Go, was published in 2008. She earned her B.A. from Kent State University and received her M.F.A. from Ashland University. Her poems have appeared in Literary Imagination, A Trunk of Delirium, r.kv.r.y quarterly journal and elsewhere.

Program Manager

Jessica Jewell graduated from Indiana University with a degree in English Literature and earned an MFA from Kent State University where she was the Wick Poetry Fellow. Her poetry has appeared in Cider Press Review, American Poetry Journal, Nimrod, Harpur Palate, Copper Nickel, Fjords Review, Rhino, Barn Owl Review and Poetry Midwest, among others. Her chapbook, Slap Leather, was published by dancing girl press in 2011, and she has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Business Officer

Fellows and Interns