Lisa Sewell

Lisa Sewell was born and raised in southern California. She was educated at UC Berkeley, NYU and Tufts University. She studied genetics and marine biology as an undergraduate and only started writing poetry after receiving her BA. She is the author of five poetry collections, THE WAY OUT (Alice James Books), NAME WITHHELD (Four Way Books), IMPOSSIBLE OBJECT (The Word Works), winner of the 2014 Tenth Gate Prize, BIRDS OF NORTH AMERICA (Drawing Room Press), with artist Susan Hagen and poet Nathalie Anderson, FLOOD PLAIN (Grid Books) and a chapbook, LONG CORRIDOR (Seven Kitchens Press), winner of the 2008 Keystone Chapbook Award. She is also co-editor, with Claudia Rankine, of AMERICAN POETS IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY and ELEVEN MORE AMERICAN WOMEN POETS IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY, and with Kazim Ali of AMERICAN WOMEN POETS IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY, all from Wesleyan University Press. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals including PARIS REVIEW, PLOUGHSHARES, CRAB ORCHARD REVIEW, LAUREL REVIEW, and PRAIRIE SCHOONER. She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Leeway Foundation, the Pennsylvania Council for the Arts and the Fine Arts Work Center at Provincetown. She lives in Philadelphia and teaches in the English Department at Villanova University.