Marjorie Maddox
Assistant Editor
Host of the WPSU-FM radio program Poetry Moment, Sage Graduate Fellow of Cornell University (MFA), and Professor Emerita of English and Creative Writing at the Lock Haven campus of Commonwealth University, Marjorie Maddox has published over twenty books. These include the poetry collections Hover Here (Broadstone Books), Seeing Things (Wildhouse Publishing, 2026 Illumination Book Award Winner in the category of Illness/Death/Dying, 2026 National Indie Excellence Book Award Finalist, Catholic Media Poetry Book Award Finalist, and AlzAuthors Notable Book); Begin with a Question (Paraclete Press, International Book Award Winner, Illumination Book Award Winner, and Catholic Media Award, Third Place); the ekphrastic collaborations from Shanti Arts Publishing Heart Speaks, Is Spoken For (with photographer Karen Elias), In the Museum of My Daughter’s Mind (with artist daughter Anna Lee Hafer www.hafer.work and others)—a 2023 Dragonfly Book Award in photography/fine arts and American Fiction Winner Award in poetry—and Small Earthly Space (with Karen Elias, a Royal Dragonfly Book Award Winner in Poetry). In addition, she has published How Can I Look It Up When I Don’t Know How It’s Spelled? Spelling Mnemonics and Grammar Tricks (Kelsay Books); True, False, None of the Above (Poeima Poetry Series and Illumination Book Award Medalist); Perpendicular As I (Sandstone Book Award); Weeknights at the Cathedral (WordTech); Transplant, Transport, Transubstantiation (Yellowglen Prize); and others.
Marjorie's story collection, What She Was Saying, a national finalist for the Katherine Anne Porter and Eludia book awards, was published by Fomite Press in 2017. In addition, she is co-editor, with Jerry Wemple, of Common Wealth: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania and Keystone Poetry (Penn State Press 2005 and 2025), a Silver Medalist for the IPPY Book Awards in the Mid-Atlantic Nonfiction Category. She has five children’s/YA books, including A Crossing of Zebras: Animal Packs in Poetry, Rules of the Game: Baseball Poems, Inside Out: Poems on Writing and Reading Poems with Insider Exercises (Kelsay Books, International Book Award Finalist in Education); and I’m Feeling Blue, Too! (a 2021 NCTE Notable Poetry Book). She is the great grandniece of Branch Rickey, the general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers who helped break the color barrier by signing Jackie Robinson. Her chatty biography, written for ages 9—adult, is A Man Named Branch: The True Story of Baseball’s Great Experiment (Sunbury Press, winner of the 2026 Purple Dragonfly Book Award in the category of Sports).
Other honors include Cornell University’s Chasen Award; the Paumanok Poetry Award; an Academy of American Poets Prize; the Seattle Review’s Bentley Prize for Poetry; a Bread Loaf Scholarship; Pushcart Prize nominations in both poetry and fiction; a 2023 Monson Arts Fellow, winner of America Magazine’s 2019 Foley Poetry Prize, Writers Conference Of Northern Appalachia 2026 Outstanding Participant Award, and Lock Haven University's Honors Professor of the Year. Marjorie has published over 800 poems, stories, and essays in journals and anthologies. She gives readings, workshops, radio interviews, and lectures around the country.
Poetry leads to discovery, prompting us to face ourselves, others, and the world. Certainly the poet has the potential to become that voice crying in the wilderness, “Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord.” And yet—similar to a powerful painting or piece of music—poetry can’t be paraphrased or condensed; it must be experienced. The words need to become, as Marianne Moore argued, “imaginary gardens with real toads”—be it the gardens of Versailles, Eden, Gethsemane, or Babylon. May the poems of Presence be such a garden, thick with your words, lush with the everyday and the eternal. We invite you to enter.