Neil Shepard

Caption

Neil Shepard (born January 29, 1951 in Fitchburg, Massachusetts) is an American poet, essayist, professor of creative writing, and literary magazine editor. He has a BA from University of Vermont, MFA from Colorado State University, and Ph.D. from Ohio University. He has taught at Louisiana State University, Rider University (NJ) and, for many years, at Johnson State College (VT). He currently teaches in the low-residency MFA writing program at Wilkes University (PA) and is Senior Editor of the literary magazine Green Mountains Review. Shepard also founded and directed for eight years the Writers Program at the Vermont Studio Center. He has published three books of poetry, the latest, This Far from the Source (Mid-List Press, 2006), and his poems and essays appear in such magazines as Antioch Review, AWP Chronicle, Boulevard, Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, Harvard Review, New American Writing, New England Review, North American Review, Ontario Review, Paris Review, Shenandoah, Small Press Reviews, Southern Review, and TriQuarterly.

Poetic Influences

Shepard's first creative writing teacher was David Huddle, poet and short story writer at the University of Vermont. Shepard studied with Bill Tremblay for his Master's work at Colorado State University and with Stanley Plumly, Wayne Dodd, and Paul Nelson for his doctoral work at Ohio University.^[1]

Other influences on Shepard's poetry include his many years playing piano and guitar; his love of jazz (bebop and post‑bebop), soul, and classical music; world‑wide treks in the moun­tains, from China to New Zealand to Norway to Switzerland to the American Rockies; con­stant forays into the natural world; amateur birding; summers along the Maine coast; long residence in northern New England; year-long sojourns in Shanghai, China (1991), the Marquesas Islands in the South Pacific (1993), and France (2003).^[2]

His marriage to Kate Riley, linguistic anthropologist and fiction writer, introduced Shepard to the South Pacific, French language and French colonial culture. He accompanied Riley to the Marquesas Islands, where she conducted her fieldwork on language and culture, and eventually Shepard wrote the Marquesan poems that appear in his second book, I'm Here Because I Lost My Way.^[3]

The birth of his only daughter, Anna Riley‑Shepard (b. 1995), has also deeply affected his work. A section of poems called “Birth Announcements” appears in Shepard's third book, This Far from the Source.^[4]

Poetry

Scavenging the Country for a Heartbeat (First Book Award, Mid-List Press, 1993)

I’m Here Because I Lost My Way (Mid-List, 1998)

This Far from the Source (Mid-List, 2006).

References

1. ^ Mid-List Press, http://www.midlist.org/showauthor.cfm?authnum=8
2. ^ Contemporary Authors, New Revision Series, Volume 102
3. ^ Contemporary Authors, New Revision Series, Volume 102
4. ^ Contemporary Authors, New Revision Series, Volume 102

External links

• Mid-List Press

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Name	Shephard, Neil
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Date of birth	January 29, 1951
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