Terence Winch

Bronx-born son of Irish immigrants, writer and musician Terence Patrick Winch has published ten book of poems, the most recent being It Is As If Desire (Hanging Loose, 2024) and That Ship Has Sailed (Pitt Poetry Series, 2023). Other books include Boy Drinkers (2007), which focuses on his upbringing in Irish-Catholic New York, and Irish Musicians/American Friends (1985), which won an American Book Award. That Special Place: New World Irish Stories (2004) is a collection of pieces centering around his music life, primarily as a member of the original Celtic Thunder, the band he founded with his brother Jesse. His young adult novel Seeing-Eye Boy (2020) is set in the Irish immigrant world of the Bronx in 1957. In 2007, he released a CD compilation of his compositions called When New York Was Irish, named after his best-known song. More recent albums include This Day Too: Music from Irish America (2017), Celtic Thunder Live in Concert (2023), and The Winch Family Band’s recording, The Irish Riviera (2023).

Terence Winch’s work appears in more than 50 anthologies, and has been featured on NPR’s “All Things Considered” and “The Writer’s Almanac.” Recipient of an NEA Poetry Fellowship and a Gertrude Stein Award for Innovative Writing, he edits the Best American Poetry blog’s “Pick of the Week” feature.

His work is included in more than 50 anthologies, including The Oxford Book of American Poetry and six Best American Poetry collections. His poems are also to be found in Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry (Random House); The Book of Irish American Poetry from the 18th Century to the Present (Notre Dame); Saints of Hysteria: A Half-Century of Collaborative American Poetry (Soft Skull); Great American Prose Poems: From Poe to the Present (Scribner's); Poetry Daily: 366 Poems from the World's Most Popular Poetry Website (Sourcebooks); and From Totems to Hip-Hop: A Multicultural Anthology of Poetry Across the Americas (Thunder's Mouth).

His work has appeared in The Paris Review, Hanging Loose, The Southern Review, New American Writing, The New Republic, American Poetry Review, Shiny, Verse, Western Humanities Review, Agni, The World, New Hibernia Review, Irish Music et al.

Winch's poems have also appeared in such online publications The Serving House Journal, Poetry Daily, and The Innisfree Poetry Journal, and have been highlighted many times on "The Writer's Almanac" radio program. Featured in a profile on National Public Radio's "All Things Considered," Winch has also interviewed many leading Irish writers for the cable TV series The Writing Life, and was himself the subject of an interview with Roland Flint for the series in 1998.

TW has also written for The Washington Post, The Washingtonian, The Village Voice, The Wilson Quarterly, The Dictionary of Irish Literature, The Oxford Companion to American Poetry, and other books and publications. Since 2009 he has been a regular contributor to the Best American Poetry blog, and since 2020 he has edited the site's Pick of the Week feature..

Terence Winch has received an NEA Fellowship in poetry, as well as grants from the DC Commission on the Arts, the Maryland State Arts Council, and the Fund for Poetry. He is also the winner of a Gertrude Stein Award for Innovative Writing.