Scott Beal

Scott Beal’s poems have appeared in Rattle, Prairie Schooner, Beloit Poetry Journal, Muzzle, Southern Indiana Review, Sonora Review, Indiana Review, and other journals. He won a 2014 Pushcart Prize for the poem “Things to Think About.” His first full-length collection, Wait ‘Til You Have Real Problems, was published by Dzanc Books in November 2014. Beal teaches full-time in the Sweetland Center for Writing, the English Department Writing Program, and the Lloyd Hall Scholars Program at the University of Michigan. He has led many poetry and fiction workshops for the Neutral Zone, the InsideOut Literary ArtsProject, 826michigan, and other organizations, and he currently serves as a writer-in-the-schools for Dzanc Books in Ann Arbor. He earned his MFA from the University of Michigan in 1996, where he received several Hopwood Awards. He co-authored Jangle the Threads with Rachel McKibbens and Aracelis Girmay (Red Beard Press, 2010) and Underneath: The Archaeological Approach to Creative Writing with Jeff Kass (Red Beard Press, 2011). His chapbook, Two Shakespearean Madwomen Vs. the Detroit Red Wings, won the Fall 1998 Chapbook Contest from White Eagle Coffee Store Press. The manuscript for Wait ‘Til You Have Real Problems was a 2012 finalist for the Lena-Miles Wever Todd Poetry Prize from Pleiades Press and the ABZ Press Poetry Prize. Beal has competed in the Individual World Poetry Slam and has been a featured performer at schools, bookstores, and poetry slams around the country, including the Green Mill in Chicago, the Nuyorican Poet’s Cafe in New York, and the Cantab Lounge in Boston. He curates and co-hosts the Skazat! monthly poetry series in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he lives with his two daughters.