Allison Joseph, 25th Annual ODU Literary Festival

Allison Joseph is the author of What Keeps Us Here, as well as Soul Train and In Every Seam. Her honors include the 1992 Women Poets Series Competition Award, the 1992 John C. Zacharis First Book Prize, an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship in Poetry for 1996, and a 1997 Literary Award from the Illinois Arts Council. Her interests include contemporary American poetry - especially the work of women and minorities - popular culture, literary magazine publishing, and the teaching of creative writing. Currently she is an associate professor at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, where she serves as editor of Crab Orchard Review and director of the Young Writers Workshop, a summer creative writing conference for high school students. She is on the Board of Directors of The Associated Writing Programs