Joan Colby

Poet

Elgin, IL
Illinois US
Email: 
joanmc@aol.com
Website: 
www.joancolby.com
Twitter/X: 
@poetjm

Author's Bio

I have written poetry and fiction most of my life. I have been editor of the trade publication Illinois Racing News for over 30 years and I live on a small horse farm in northern Illinois with my husband. I am a senior editor of FutureCycle Press and an associate editor of Good Works Review.

Publications & Prizes

Books:
Ribcage (Glass Lyre Press, 2015)
,
Selected Poems (FutureCycle Press, 2013)
,
Dead Horses (FutureCycle Press, 2012)
,
Anthology: What Have You Lost (Greenwillow Books, 1999)
,
The Atrocity Book (Lynx House Press, 1987)
,
The Lonely Hearts Killers (Spoon River Poetry Press, 1986)
,
How The Sky Begins To Fall (Spoon River Poetry Press, 1984)
Chapbooks:
Ah Clio (Kattywompus Press, 2015)
,
Broke (FutureCycle Press, 2015)
,
Pro Forma (Foothills Publishing, 2015)
,
Bittersweet (Main Street Rag, 2014)
Journals:
Albatross
,
Another Chicago Magazine
,
Atlanta Review
,
Barrelhouse
,
Cream City Review
,
Gargoyle Magazine
,
Grand Street
,
Illinois Review
,
Karamu
,
Mid-American Review
,
New Renaissance
,
North American Review
,
Poetry
,
Spoon River Poetry Review
Prizes won: 

A fellowship in Literature plus two poetry awards from the Illinois Arts Council, a winner in the 2014 and 2016 Atlanta Review International Poetry Contest, runner-up in the James Hearst Poetry Contest, honorable mentions in numerous contests, awarded the 2015 Kithara Book Prize for "Ribcage" and the 2013 FutureCycle Book Prize for "Selected Poems."

Personal Favorites

Favorite authors: 
Pablo Neruda Leo Tolstoy Robert Stone William Vollman Flannery O'Connor Lucia Berlin W.B. Yeats Walt Whitman Alice Munro Joyce Carol Oates Elizabeth Bishop James Wright Theodore Roethke Ted Hughes Dylan Thomas Dean Young Richard Wilbur
What I'm reading now: 
Benjamin Franklin by Walter Isaacson, The Unexpurgated Journals of Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath, Do No Harm by Henry Marsh, Joseph Anton by Salman Rushdie, Good Trouble by Joseph O'Neill, One Light by Dana Wildsmith, Kudos by Rachel Cusk

More Information

Fluent in: 
English
Born in: 
Chicago, IL
Illinois
Raised in: 
Chicago, IL
Illinois
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Last update: Apr 15, 2021