Joan Colby

Author's Bio

I have written poetry most of my life. I also work as an editor of Illinois Racing News, a publication for the Illinois Thoroughbred Breeders and Owners Foundation, and I live on a small horse farm in northern Illinois with my husband. I have three grown children.

Publications and Prizes

Books:

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)

Journals:

Albatross, Another Chicago Magazine, Atlanta Review, Barrelhouse, Cream City Review, Gargoyle, Grand Street, Illinois Review, Karamu, Mid-American Review, New Renaissance, North American Review, Poetry, Spoon River Poetry Review

Prizes:

A fellowship in Literature plus two poetry awards from the Illinois Arts Council, awards from the new renaissance, honorable mention in the 2008 James Hearst Poetry Contest (North American Review)and in the 2009 Margie Editor's Choice Poetry Contest.

Personal Favorites

What I'm Reading Now:

Max and Marjorie (Corresponsence) by Rodger L. Tarr, The Lay of the Land by Richard Ford, Faithless by Joyce Carol Oates, What Goes On by Steven Dunn, The Dreams Out in the Street by Kim Addonizio

Favorite Books:

Anna Karenina, Fathers and Crows, The Gravediggers Daughter, Stories of Chekov, The Garden Party, A Good Man is Hard to Find, Madame Bovary, Hemingway's Short Stories, To The Lighthouse, Collected Poems of Pablo Neruda, Leaves of Grass, The Hamlet, Damascus Gate, The Rabbit Novels, Friend of My Youth, Sons and Lovers, Open Range, the plays of Shakespeare, Humboldt's Gift, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, All the Little Live Things, With Fire and Sword, Stories of Eudora Welty, Slouching Toward Bethlehem, Martha Quest,The Mosquito Coast, Crow, The Light Years, The House of the Spirits and many more.

Favorite Authors:

Tolstoy, Flaubert, Neruda, Chekov, Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, Virginia Woolf, Walt Whitman, Ted Hughes, Annie Proulx, Joan Didion, Paul Theroux, T.C. Boyle, Jhumpa Lahiri, Alice Munro, Joyce Carol Oates, Robert Stone, William Vollman, John Updike, Wallace Stegner, John Fowles, D.H. Lawrence, Doris Lessing, Katherine Mansfield, Shakespeare, Cormac McCarthy, Elizabeth Jane Howard, Thomas Mann, Ron Rash, Edna O'Brien, Yeats.

Please note: All information in the Directory is provided by the listed writers or their representatives.
Listing last updated: March 26, 2013

More Information

Listed as:

Poet

Gives readings?

Yes

Travels for readings?

Yes

Prefers to work with:

Any

Fluent in:

English

Born in:

Chicago, IL

Raised in:

Chicago, IL