Linda Dove

For years before starting her own writing career, Linda Dove was a scholar and teacher of poetry, taking her M.A. and Ph.D. in the poetry of the English Renaissance at the University of Maryland, College Park.  She taught courses in poetry, Shakespeare, women writers, Western Civ, composition, British literature, and creative writing at the University of Maryland, at Hope College (Holland, Michigan), and at Yavapai College (Prescott, Arizona), where she directed the creative writing program in 2003.  In 2000, she published a collection of scholarly essays, Women, Writing, and the Reproduction of Culture in Tudor and Stuart Britain (Syracuse UP).  She retired from eighteen years of college teaching in 2007 to devote herself full-time to writing poetry and to tending her ranch in Skull Valley, Arizona.  She now lives with her husband and daughter and their three dogs in southern California.  Her first collection of poems, In Defense of Objects, was published in October 2009 by Bear Star Press.

• Eighth Annual Elixir Press Poetry Awards, 2009.
• The Cleveland State University First Book Prize, 2006.
• Writers at Work Fellowship Competition, 2006.
• Samuel French Morse Poetry Prize, Northeastern UP/UPNE, 2006.
• Brittingham-Pollak Poetry Prizes, The U of Wisconsin Poetry Press Series, 2005.
• The John Ciardi Prize for Poetry, BkMk Press, 2005.
• The Cleveland State U First Book Competition, 2005.
• The Spire Annual Poetry Book Competition, Spire Press, 2005.
• Bright Hill Press Poetry Book Competition, 2004.
• Dana Award in Poetry, 2004.
• Fifth Annual Elixir Press Poetry Awards, 2005.
• Hollis Summers Poetry Prize, Ohio UP, 2004.
• The Richard Snyder Memorial Publication Prize, The Ashland Poetry Press, 2004.
• Discovery / The Nation National Poetry Competition, 2004.