Alison Townsend

Alison Townsend is the author of two books of poetry, The Blue Dress and Persephone in America, which won the Crab Orchard Open Poetry Competition. Her poetry and nonfiction appear in numerous journals, including The Southern Review, The Kenyon Review, Parabola, and Under the Sun, and have been recognized in Best American Poetry, The Pushcart Prize, and Best American Essays 2020. Her many awards include the 2020 Rattle Poetry Prize. She is Professor Emerita of English at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, where she taught creative nonfiction. She and her climate-activist husband live on four acres of prairie and oak savanna in the farm country outside Madison, Wisconsin.