In this episode, Clifford Brooks and Michael Amidei interview poet and author Melissa Studdard.
Melissa Studdard is the author of four books, including the poetry collection I Ate the Cosmos for Breakfast and the young adult novel Six Weeks to Yehidah. Her short writings have appeared in a wide variety of journals, magazines, blogs, and anthologies, such as The New York Times, Poetry, Psychology Today, The Guardian, New Ohio Review, Harvard Review, Bettering American Poetry, and Poets & Writers.
A short film of the title poem from Studdard’s I Ate the Cosmos for Breakfast (by Dan Sickles of Moxie Pictures for Motionpoems) was an official selection for the Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival and the Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival, as well as winner of the REEL Poetry Festival Audience Choice Award. Other poems of hers have been made into car magnets, telepoem booth recordings, and Houston City Banners.
Her awards include the Forward National Literature Award, the International Book Award, the Kathak Literary Award, the Poiesis Award of Honor International, the Readers’ Favorite Award, and two Pinnacle Book Achievement Awards. As well, her books have been listed in Cutthroat: A Journal of the Arts’ Best Books of the Year, January Magazine’s Best Children’s Books of the Year, Bustle’s “8 Feminist Poems To Inspire You When The World Is Just Too Much,” and Amazon’s Most Gifted Books.
As well, she has recently been in residency at the Centrum in Port Townsend, and The Hermitage Artist Retreat in Manasota Key, where she was poet in residence.
In addition to writing, Studdard serves as the executive producer and host of VIDA Voices & Views for VIDA: Women in Literary Arts and on the TUPP Advisory Council as a Walt Whitman Project Planning Associate. As well, she is a past president of the Associated Writing Program’s Women’s Caucus. She received her MFA from Sarah Lawrence college and is a professor for the Lone Star College System.
