Julia Kasdorf

Julia Kasdorf (born December 6, 1962) is an American poet.

Born Julia Spicher in Lewistown, Pennsylvania, she grew up in the suburbs southeast of Pittsburgh near Irwin, Westmoreland County. [Julia Spicher, "Moss Lotus" (Atlanta: Pinchpenny Press, 1983)] Her parents were Mennonites who chose to leave their rural community in central Pennsylvania for the city.

Her first published poem appeared in 1977 in "Images Remembered II", an anthology of the Poets in the Schools program. [Julia Spicher, "Moss Lotus" (Atlanta: Pinchpenny Press, 1983)] Two years later she wrote in workshops at Summer Happening '79 and under Deborah Burnham and H. L. Van Brunt at Pennsylvania Governor's School for the Arts in 1980. [Julia Spicher, "Moss Lotus" (Atlanta: Pinchpenny Press, 1983)] She attended Goshen College for several years. In 1981 she won the Scholastic Writing Awards with work that was then published in "Literary Cavalcade". While at Goshen she also had poems published in "With", "Builder", "Christian Living", and the college magazines "Record" and "Broadside".

Spicher visited China for the autumn of 1982 to do her Study-Service Trimester at Sichuan Teachers College and as a sophomore English major at Goshen in 1983 she published "Moss Lotus", a chapbook of poetry inspired by her Chinese experiences. [Julia Spicher, "Moss Lotus" (Atlanta: Pinchpenny Press, 1983)] She earned her B.A., M.A. in creative writing, and Ph.D. from New York University [ [http://english.la.psu.edu/facultystaff/Bio_Kasdorf.htm 'Julia Spicher Kasdorf', "Penn State: The Department of English" (2005)] . Retrieved August 30 2006.] , where she studied with poet Yehuda Amichai, among others.

She is an associate professor of English and Women's Studies and directs the Master of Fine Arts Program at [Pennsylvania State University] .

Awards and recognition

Kasdorf won the 1991 Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize for her first book "Sleeping Preacher". She has since won the The Great Lakes Colleges Award for New Writing (1993), Book of the Year Award from the Conference on Christianity and Literature (2001), and the Pushcart Prize (poetry) (2004). [ [http://english.la.psu.edu/facultystaff/Bio_Kasdorf.htm 'Julia Spicher Kasdorf', "Penn State: The Department of English" (2005)] . Retrieved August 30 2006.]

Works

Kasdorf's poems have appeared in "The New Yorker", "The Paris Review", and several anthologies. [ [http://english.la.psu.edu/facultystaff/Bio_Kasdorf.htm 'Julia Spicher Kasdorf', "Penn State: The Department of English" (2005)] . Retrieved August 30 2006.]

In 1997, she had a poem published in "West Branch", a Bucknell University based literary journal founded in 1977. The magazine features mainly poetry and fiction, plus prose, graphic art, photography and the occasional review or critical piece.

Bibliography

* "Moss Lotus", poetry chapbook (Atlanta: Pinchpenny Press, 1983) published under name of Julia Spicher. Illustrated by Suelyn Lee
* "Sleeping Preacher", poetry (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1992) ISBN 0-8229-5480-X
* Contribution to Karl Patten and Robert Taylor (eds.) "West Branch" 41 (Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University, 1997). Trade ISSN 0149-6441
* "Eve's Striptease", poetry (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1998) ISBN 0-8229-5668-3
* "The Body and the Book: Writing from a Mennonite Life", essays and poetry (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001) ISBN 0-8018-6662-6
* "Fixing Tradition: Joseph W. Yoder, Amish American", biography (Telford: Pandora Press, 2003) ISBN 1-931038-06-6
* "Broken Land: Poems of Brooklyn", poetry anthology, Michael Tyrell, coeditor (New York: NYU Press, 2007)

Forthcoming

"Rosanna of the Amish" by Joseph W. Yoder, [Joshuah R. Brown] , coeditor (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 2008)

References

"Contemporary Authors Online". The Gale Group, 2004. PEN (Permanent Entry Number): 0000111881