Cathleen Calbert

Craig-Lee Hall 365 (401) 456-8678 (401) 456-8027 ccalbert@ric.edu Visit Cathleen Calbert's personal website

Academic Background

• B.A. University of California (Berkeley)
• M.A. Syracuse University
• Ph.D. University of Houston

Background

Cathleen Calbert is the author of three books of poetry: Lessons in Space (University of Florida Press, 1997), Bad Judgment (Sarabande Books, 1999), and Sleeping with a Famous Poet (CustomWords, forthcoming in 2007). Her poems and stories have appeared in numerous publications, including Ms., The New Republic, The Paris Review, The Southern Review, and Poetry. Her awards include The Nation Discovery Award, a Pushcart Prize, the Sheila Motton Book Prize, the Gordon Barber Memorial Award, and the Mary Tucker Thorp Professorship at Rhode Island College.

I believe that talent exists and that I can't teach whatever strange collection of qualities go into making someone talented at writing. However, I also believe that writing is a craft, like pottery or photography, and that a workshop can help writers improve their craft by encouraging them to refine skills and techniques. To write alone is often to write in the dark, without a chance to develop, so to speak. To share writing changes everything...Divine spark aside, I believe that creative writing can be taught, can be learned, in the same manner that one can learn about glazes, learn about light speed.

Areas of Interest

• Creative Writing – Poetry and Fiction
• Modern Poetry
• Contemporary Poetry