Elaine Dallman

I am the founder and president of the nationally recognized Nevada independent publishing house, Women in Literature, Inc., and was the founding editor-in-chief of its Women Poet regional anthology series. Throughout my literary career, I have been active in programs that bring poets and poetry directly into the community.

I have published/edited seven books, two of which sold out.

My B.A. and one year’s graduate study at Stanford University were in the double majors of psychology and education. Following my Stanford studies, I worked in many different capacities in positions which I believed could improve the condition of others: as a research worker and teacher in community nursery schools, as a volunteer bookkeeper for a hospital clinic, as a social worker, and as a fundraiser/publicity agent/board member of an experimental school. Because of my wide-ranging interests, I preferred especially challenging work--initiating and teaching black studies at Morningside Community Center in Harlem, and later women’s studies at Southern Illinois University--well before such courses started appearing on every college curriculum in the country.

After receiving my Master’s degree in creative writing from San Francisco State University, I worked in Poetry-in-the-Schools programs in several states, served as a poetry consultant and reader in the Oakland, California schools, and team-taught a workshop for high school teachers at the University of California, Berkeley.

Further studies led me to a Ph.D. in a double major of creative writing and English literature at Southern Illinois University, where I studied under John Gardner. At Southern Illinois, I taught poetry, creative writing, English world literature and composition. With other members of an interdisciplinary team, I designed, taught and administered SIU’s first women’s studies course. Each school year, objective surveys conducted by the SIU Testing Center rated me among the top ten percent of teachers.

Publishers and critics who have read my work have commented as follows: "Thank you so much for Nevadans. I especially liked the gambling poems -- and in general the imagery is precise, the lines neatly turned out and the book very accomplished." - Marjorie Perloff. “You certainly have weathered quite a lot, and I admire the way you are able to look back with eloquence and grace.” - Louisa Thomas, The New Yorker. “These are brave poems.” - Sondra Zeidenstein, Chicory Blue Press. “The playful mixing of childlike innocence and the bitterness of adult awareness created a really interesting mood, one full of surprises . . .” - William E. Justice, Acquisitions Editor, Heyday Books. “We enjoyed reading it.” - The Editors, W.W. Norton & Co. “It’s quite lovely . . . I was delighted to be able to read your book . . . I truly enjoyed the poems.” - Douglas Messerli, Green Integer Press.

185 of my poems have been printed in a wide variety of literary anthologies, including Celebration of Writers, Discover America, as well as in literary journals such as Epoch and Peregrine; more in Home Means Nevada: Literature of the Silver State (2008). My work was discussed at a Modern Language Association session led by Dr. M. Lou Lewandowska. I have won 125 national and international contests, including The Stroud International Festival, The Poetry Society of England, and The Poetry Society of America. My most recent academic job was as a lecturer in the English Department at the University of Nevada at Reno. I have received 16 grants and scholarships for innovative teaching, writing and publishing from organizations including the National Endowment for the Arts through the Nevada State Council of the Arts, The American Association of University Women, the Illinois Arts Council, and Villa Montalvo. Through a grant from the Nevada State Council of Humanities, I directed workshops in which thousands of men and women enrolled. I have taught at Southern Illinois University, the University of Nevada at Reno, in many writing workshops in Nevada, Illinois and California and at the Center for Humanities and Contemporary Culture, a Berkeley nonprofit educational organization. I am currently a member of the Board of Directors for the San Francisco Poetry Museum.

An inveterate traveler, I worked for two travel agencies early in my career, and later founded a non-profit company for student tours. I served on the Board of Directors for the nonprofit international student tour company of Studiosis, in Munich, Germany. My other diverse experience, including acting in radio and being a harpsichord rental agent--always involving working with people--helped form my belief that the poet must interact with the community to demonstrate the relationship of poetry to life.