Maggie Anderson

Maggie Anderson (born September 23, 1948) is an American poet and editor with roots in Appalachia.

Education and beginning of career Anderson attended West Virginia Wesleyan College from 1966–68 and earned a bachelor's degree in English, with high honors, from West Virginia University in 1970. Her M.A. in English (Creative Writing) in 1973 and an M.S.W. in 1977 were also from WVU. She worked as a rehabilitation counselor for blind and visually impaired clients at the West Virginia Rehabilitation Center from 1973-77. Beginning in 1979, she worked as poet-in-residence for ten years, in schools, senior centers, correctional facilities and libraries in West Virginia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. In addition to her travels in the United States, Anderson has lived in Denmark (1992–1993) and traveled extensively throughout western and eastern Europe, Russia, and Scandinavia.

Poetry Anderson is the author of several poetry collections, the most recent of which is Dear All, (Four Way Books, 2017), and the founder and editor of the Wick Poetry First Book Series and the Wick Poetry Chapbook Series for Ohio Poets (Kent State University Press, 1993–2011).

Journal publications and music More than 40 of Anderson’s poems have been published in poetry journals, including The American Poetry Review, New Letters, The Georgia Review, and Hamilton Stone Review, and her work has appeared in more than 50 anthologies and textbooks. Essays have appeared in 17 anthologies and journals of contemporary poetry and poetics. Her poems have been set to music four times by contemporary composers, including "The Dream Vegetables" in Dreams and Nocturnes: Chamber Music of Stephen Gryc, "In Singing Weather" by Monica Houghton, "Nightmare" by Anne LeBaron, and "Related to the Sky" from "Sun Songs and Nocturnes" by John David Earnest, an a cappella piece for male chorus performed at Lincoln Center in 1992 by Chanticleer and the New Jersey Philharmonic Orchestra.

Works Dear All, (Four Way Books, 2017) Windfall: New and Selected Poems. (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2000) A Space Filled with Moving. (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1992) Cold Comfort. (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1986) Years That Answer. (New York: Harper and Row Publishers, Inc., 1980) Greatest Hits: 1984-2004. (Columbus: Pudding House Publications, 2004) The Great Horned Owl. (Riderwood: Icarus Press, 1979)