Sheila Cowing

Discipline: Poetry

Based In: Santa Fe, NM

Year at Millay: 1983

Awards/Honors: Fellow, Distinguished Artist Fellowship, New Jersey State Council on the Arts, Trenton, NJ (1987–1988).

Website: https://www.pw.org/directory/writers/sheila_cowing

Born in rural Connecticut, Sheila Cowing graduated from Barnard College and earned her MFA from Goddard College’s part-time writing program. She was a recipient of the New Jersey Arts Council’s Distinguished Artist Fellowship, a Poets & Writers Reading Award, and a Recursos Discovery Award. Prior publications include Stronger in the Broken Places, a full-length poetry volume, and award-winning children’s nonfiction. Six years the editor-in-chief of a national literary magazine for children, she has also worked as a freelance writer and editor, a landscaper, a telephone service operator, a personal secretary, a book salesperson, and, perhaps, most difficult, the mother of three daughters. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she writes, edits, and gardens.