Ann E. Wallace

Ann E. Wallace, PhD is Poet Laureate Emeritus of Jersey City, New Jersey. She is author of three full-length collections: Keeping Room (Nixes Mate, 2026), Days of Grace and Silence: A Chronicle of COVID’s Long Haul (Kelsay Books, 2024), and Counting by Sevens (Main Street Rag, 2019). As a long-time survivor of ovarian cancer, a woman with multiple sclerosis, and one of the nation's first Long Covid patients, she has lived and written through illness for more than thirty years. Pain, disability, and disease—as well as hope and resilience—have inspired and informed her work as a poet, memoirist, patient advocate, and scholar. Her poetry collection Days of Grace and Silence was written over three years, beginning when Wallace was first sick with severe acute COVID and following her teenage daughters’ and her long journey of recovery. Wallace has published work in Huffington Post, USA Today, and numerous literary journals and collections. She serves as a patient representative for the NIH RECOVER Initiative on Long COVID and has spoken about her illness on national media. Wallace’s first collection of poetry, Counting by Sevens (Main Street Rag, 2019), is a reflection on motherhood, illness, and contemporary life in America.

Wallace is co-host and co-producer of The WildStory: A Podcast of Poetry and Plants by the Native Plant Society of New Jersey and Professor of English at New Jersey City University. She grew up in a large family in the small waterfront town of Marion, Massachusetts, migrated to New Jersey to study art at Drew University, and never left. She holds a master’s degree in Women's Studies from Rutgers University and a doctorate in English from The Graduate Center of The City University of New York. Her work is online at AnnWallacePhD.com and on Instagram @AnnWallace409.