Ann Neelon is a native of Boston and a graduate of the MFA Program at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and of Holy Cross College. She has been a Peace Corps Volunteer in West Africa, as well as a Stegner Fellow and Jones Lecturer at Stanford University. Her poems and translations have appeared in American Poetry Review, Gettysburg Review, Pequod, Poetry East, Manoa, Michigan Quarterly Review, and other magazines. She lives with her husband and son in western Kentucky, where she is Assistant Professor of English at Murray State University. Her collection of poems, Easter Vigil, won the 1995 Anhinga Prize for Poetry.
What did the Fellowship or Laureate mean to you at the time you received it?
At the time I received the Fellowship, I was a Jones Lecturer at Stanford struggling to pay rent for a studio apartment that approached 50 percent of my take-home pay. The Fellowship really helped me to keep my head above water.
What do you do now? Has your art evolved or changed?
I am a professor, who is also the director of the low-residency MFA program at Murray State University and the editor of NEW MADRID journal. Yes, my art has evolved, perhaps most substantially in response to the birth of my two children since I left California. Here?s a sample of my writing: http://www.poetrysoutheast.com/fall2006/neelon.htm
What is one piece of advice you would give to an emerging artist?
Be persistent and creative in your efforts to develop revenue sources outside of academia.
Briefly, how would you describe the state of the arts locally, as well as national and beyond?
threatened due to budget cuts