ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Maureen Tolman Flannery has grounded her poetics in the various landscapes of her life; Wyoming, where she grew up the daughter of a rancher, Mexico, where she has become infatuated with the rich complexity of Mexican culture and geography, and Chicago, where she has settled to raise her family of three sons and a daughter. These offspring, along with her husband of thirty-five years, provide much grist for her poetical mill.

She received a Literary Award from the Illinois Arts Council and has been twice nominated from a Pushcart Prize. She is a two-time grand prize winner of Sparrowgrass' Award of Poetic Excellence, and has won first place in the WyoPoets contest, the Telluride Magazine poetry contest, and the New River Poets contest.

She has also published Secret of the Rising Up: Poems of Mexico, (John Gordon Burke, 2004), Remembered into Life, (New Song Press, 2001) and A Fine Line (Fractal Edge Press). She edited the critically acclaimed Knowing Stones: Poems of Exotic Places, an anthology of travel poetry (John Gordon Burke, 2003). Her chapbook, Conversations for the Road, is available online at tmpoetry.com.

Her poems have appeared in hundred reviews, magazines, and journals, and she has placed poems in forty anthologies. Her work has been selected for "Dial-A-Poem, Chicago," and has been heard on WBEZ's "Metropolis." She is also secretary/treasurer of Poet's Club of Chicago.

Flannery received her BA and MA degrees in English Literature from Creighton University, and has taught English as a Foreign Language for thirty years.