Marjorie Maddox

Host of the WPSU-FM radio program Poetry Moment and Professor Emerita of English and Creative Writing at the Lock Haven campus of Common Wealth University, Marjorie Maddox has published over twenty books. These include the poetry collections Hover Here (Broadstone Books), Seeing Things (Wildhouse Publishing, 2026 Illumination Book Award Winner in the category of Illness/Death/Dying, 2026 National Indie Excellence Book Award Finalist, Catholic Media Poetry Book Award Finalist, and AlzAuthors Notable Book); Begin with a Question (Paraclete Press, International Book Award Winner, Illumination Book Award Winner, and Catholic Media Award, Third Place); the ekphrastic collaborations from Shanti Arts Publishing Heart Speaks, Is Spoken For (with photographer Karen Elias), In the Museum of My Daughter’s Mind (a response to 18 paintings by her artist daughter Anna Lee Hafer, as well as work by international artists Greg Mort, Margaret Munz-Losch, Antar Mikosz, Ingo Swann, Christian Twamley, and Karen Elias)—a 2023 Dragonfly Book Award in photography/fine arts and American Fiction Winner Award in poetry—and Small Earthly Space (with Karen Elias, a Royal Dragonfly Book Award Winner in Poetry). In addition, she has published How Can I Look It Up When I Don’t Know How It’s Spelled? Spelling Mnemonics and Grammar Tricks (Kelsay Books); True, False, None of the Above (Poeima Poetry Series and Illumination Book Award Medalist); Perpendicular As I (Sandstone Book Award); Weeknights at the Cathedral (WordTech); Transplant, Transport, Transubstantiation (Yellowglen Prize); Local News from Someplace Else (Wipf & Stock); When The Wood Clacks Out Your Name: Baseball Poems (2001 Redgreene Press Chapbook Winner); Body Parts (Anamnesis Press 1999); Ecclesia (Franciscan University Press, 1997); How to Fit God into a Poem (1993 Painted Bride Chapbook Winner); Nightrider to Edinburgh (1986 Amelia Chapbook Winner)l and others.

Marjorie's story collection, What She Was Saying, a national finalist for the Katherine Anne Porter and Eludia book awards, was published by Fomite Press in 2017. In addition, she is co-editor, with Jerry Wemple, of Common Wealth: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania and Keystone Poetry (Penn State Press 2005 and 2025), a Silver Medalist for the IPPY Book Awards in the Mid-Atlantic Nonfiction Category. She has five children’s/YA books, including A Crossing of Zebras: Animal Packs in Poetry, Rules of the Game: Baseball Poems, Inside Out: Poems on Writing and Reading Poems with Insider Exercises (Kelsay Books, International Book Award Finalist in Education); and I’m Feeling Blue, Too! (a 2021 NCTE Notable Poetry Book). She is the great grandniece of Branch Rickey, the general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers who helped break the color barrier by signing Jackie Robinson. Her chatty biography, written for ages 9—adult, is A Man Named Branch: The True Story of Baseball’s Great Experiment (Sunbury Press, winner of the 2026 Purple Dragonfly Book Award in the category of Sports).

Marjorie studied with A. R. Ammons, Robert Morgan, Phyllis Janowitz, and Ken McClane at Cornell, where she received the Sage Graduate Fellowship for her M.F.A. in poetry in 1989; with Sena Jeter Naslund at the University of Louisville, where she received an M.A. in English; and with Beatrice Batson and Harold Fickett at Wheaton College, where she received a B.A. in Literature. Other honors include Cornell University’s Chasen Award; the Paumanok Poetry Award; an Academy of American Poets Prize; the Seattle Review’s Bentley Prize for Poetry; a Bread Loaf Scholarship; Pushcart Prize nominations in both poetry and fiction; a 2023 Monson Arts Fellow, winner of America Magazine’s 2019 Foley Poetry Prize, Writers Conference Of Northern Appalachia 2026 Outstanding Participant Award, and Lock Haven University's Honors Professor of the Year. Marjorie has published over 800 poems, stories, and essays in journals and anthologies. She gives readings, workshops, radio interviews, and lectures around the country. In addition, she has poems included in over 40 anthologies, including Christian Poetry in America since 1940 (Paraclete Press), edited by Michael Mattix and Sally Thomas, and The Working Poet: 75 Writing Exercises and a Poetry Anthology (Autumn House Press) and The Working Poet II (Mammoth Books) contain three of her pedagogical essays, including poems by her former students. Her memoir essay, "Going Exactly Where We Want to Go," is included in Fast Break to Line Break: Poets on the Art of Basketball, edited by Todd Davis. Additional memoir essays are included in Western Washington Reflections and Western Pennsylvania Reflections, and elsewhere.