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Home > Renee Olander

Renee Olander [1]

Listed as: 
Poet
Public address: 
Norfolk, VA
Virginia US
Email: 
rolander@odu.edu
Bio: 

Renée Ellen Olander is author of American Dangerous, a collection of poems, and poetry chapbooks A Few Spells and Wild Flights.  Her poetry and nonfiction have appeared widely, including in the Split This Rock, Heart Online and The Chronicle of Higher Education Poetry Month blogs, anthologies Feminine Rising: Voices of Power and Invisibility, Forgotten Women, and Verse and Universe: Poems About Science and Mathematics, and journals Free State Review, The Café Review, South Loop Review, Hawai’i Pacific Review Best of the Decade, Rhino, Plainswoman, Dogwood Review, Snake~Nation~Review, 5am, and many others.  Born on Naval Base Corpus Christi, Texas, USA, Olander was raised into the military-industrial complex.  Her award-winning work explores intersections including family and military, love and terror, and our human associations with climate change.  Recipient of the Kate Smith Award from Amelia Magazine, the Benn Award for Creative Writing from Mary Baldwin U., and a Pushcart Prize nomination from Sistersong: Women Across Cultures, among other honors, Olander is a longtime advocate for social and environmental justice.  

Gives readings: 
Yes
Travels for readings: 
Yes
In which languages are you fluent?: 
English
Favorite authors: 
Sappho, Walt Whitman, June Jordan, Muriel Rukeyser, Anne Waldman, Richard Hoffman, Zora Neale Hurston, Virginia Woolf, Ovid, Natalie Diaz
Born in: 
Corpus Christi, TX
Texas
Raised in: 
Honolulu, HI
Hawaii
Website: 
https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/virginiap… [2]
Prizes won: 

Kate Smith Award for Poetry - from AMELIA Magazine, 1988; Benn Award for Creative Writing - from Mary Baldwin U., 1984 & 1983.

Education: 
Stonecoast MFA, University of Southern Maine
What I'm reading now: 
The Myth of Normal by Gabor Mate
Unidentified Sighing Objects by Baron Wormser
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Identifies as: 
Mixed-Race
Prefers to work with: 
Any
At Risk Youth
Children
Naturalists/Environmentalists
Seniors
Teachers
Teenagers

Source URL:https://www.pw.org/directory/writers/renee_olander

Links
[1] https://www.pw.org/directory/writers/renee_olander [2] https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/virginiapoets/hamptonroads/poets/11/