Neil Shepard is an American poet, essayist, professor of creative writing, and literary magazine editors
Education
Shepard received a Bachelor from the University of Vermont, an Master of Fine Arts from Colorado State University, and a Doctor of Philosophy from Ohio University. He currently teaches in the low-residency Master of Fine Arts writing program at Wilkes University and is Senior and Founding Editor of the literary magazine Green Mountains Review.
Career
He is a recipient of the 1992 Mid-List Press First Series Award for Poetry, as well as a recipient of a fellowship from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and the MacDowell Colony. He routinely participates in poetry reading events throughout the United States. He has taught at Louisiana State University, Rider University in New Jersey and Johnson State College in Vermont.
He has published several books of poetry to positive reviews, and his poems and essays appear in such magazines as Antioch Review, AWP Chronicle, Boulevard, Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, Harvard Review, New American Writing, New England Review, North American Review, Ontario Review, Paris Review, Shenandoah, Small Press Reviews, Southern Review, TriQuarterly and Vermont Public Radio.
Shepard studied with William Tremblay for his Master"s work at Colorado State University and with Stanley Plumly, Wayne Dodd, and Paul Nelson for his doctoral work at Ohio University. He accompanied Riley to the Marquesas Islands, where she conducted her fieldwork on language and culture, and eventually Shepard wrote the Marquesan poems that appear in his second book A section of poems called Birth Announcements appears in Shepard"s third book, Other influences on Shepard"s poetry include his many years playing piano and guitar, his love of jazz and classical music, as well as extensive travel, including year-long sojourns in Shanghai, China (1991), the Marquesas Islands in the South Pacific (1993), and France (2003).
Shepard’s fourth book of poetry, (T)ravel/Un(t)ravel, records these experiences abroad. Shepard’s long association with Vermont is recorded in his fifth book, Vermont Exit Ramps, which mixes history, natural history, and personal history to investigate life along the highways of Vermont.