Stacy Szymaszek
Stacy Szymaszek -follow link to hear pronunciation- (b. 1969) is from Milwaukee, WI and studied poetry at the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee. After spending a summer on Kate Millett’s Farm/art colony, she became invested in participating in anti-authoritarian, anti-institutional, anti-colonial structures as a way of life. After spending the 90’s working in independent video stores, bookstores, and cafes in Philadelphia and Chicago, she returned to Milwaukee where she learned the ropes of grassroots nonprofit arts administration and small press/DIY publishing while working at Woodland Pattern Book Center ( 1999-2005). In 2005, she moved to NYC to work at The Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church, where she was Artistic/Executive Director from 2007-2018.
Szymaszek is the author of the books Emptied of All Ships (2005), Hyperglossia (2009), hart island (2015), Journal of Ugly Sites and Other Journals (2016), which won the Ottoline Prize from Fence Books and was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award in 2017, and A Year From Today (2018). Two books will be published in 2022: The Pasolini Book (Golias Books) is out now, and Famous Hermits (Archway Editions) will be out this Fall. She is the recipient of a 2014 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry, and a 2019 Foundation for Contemporary Arts grant in poetry.
Szymaszek was the Hugo Visiting Writer at the University of Montana-Missoula 2018-19, Poet-in-Resident at Brown University, and Visiting Poet for the Fire Island Artist Residency. She has been a mentor for the Queer Art Mentorship, visiting faculty for Naropa University’s Summer Writing Program, and workshop teacher for Woodland Pattern, The Poetry Project, and Wendy’s Subway. She serves on the board of directors for Wendy’s Subway and Committee on Poetry. With her partner, the poet Kimberly Alidio, she lives in New York’s Upper Hudson Valley on the sacred homelands of the Munsee and Muhheaconneok people, who, due to forced removal, reside in Northeast Wisconsin as the Stockbridge-Munsee Community.
