Jessica Purdy
has lived in New England all her life. Having majored in both English and Studio Art at UNH, she feels drawn to the visual in both art and poetry. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing with a concentration in Poetry from Emerson College. She has worked as an art teacher and a writing teacher. Currently, she teaches Poetry Workshops and Creative Writing at Southern New Hampshire University. In 2015, she was a featured reader at the Abroad Writers’ Conference in Dublin, Ireland. Her poems have been nominated for Best New Poets and Best of the Net. Her poems and reviews have appeared in many journals and anthologies, including gravel, The Plath Poetry Project, The Ekphrastic Review, The Light Ekphrastic, SurVision, The Wild Word, isacoustic, Nixes Mate Review, Bluestem Magazine, The Telephone Game, The Tower Journal, and The Cafe Review, among others. Anthologies include Except for Love: New England Poets Inspired by Donald Hall, Nancy Drew Anthology, and Lunation. Her chapbook, Learning the Names, was published in 2015 by Finishing Line Press. Her books STARLAND and Sleep in a Strange House were both released by Nixes Mate Books consecutively, in 2017 and 2018. In 2019, Sleep in a Strange House was a finalist for the NH Literary Awards. She was the 2019 Esther Buffler Poet-in-Residence at Portsmouth High School in New Hampshire. She is poetry editor for the upcoming anthology, Ten Piscataqua Writers:
Click here to open the PDF of Jessica’s write-up for her residency at Portsmouth High School
Click here for Jessicas Website
