Alison Hicks’s third collection of poems, Knowing Is A Branching Trail, won the 2021 Birdy Prize from Meadowlark Press, and is available now (Meadowlark Press, 2021) She is author of poetry collections You Who Took the Boat Out (Unsolicited Press 2017) and Kiss (PS Books, 2006), a chapbook Falling Dreams (Finishing Line Press, 2006), a novella Love: A Story of Images (AWA Press, 2004), and an anthology, Prompted (PS Books, 2010). Her poem “house in mind” was winner of Philadelphia City Paper 2011 poetry contest, and a second poem, “canoeing at night,” was selected as runner-up. Also in 2011, her poem “Autumn Lilies” received First Prize in the 2011 Charlotte Miller Simon Poetry Contest from the Ardmore (PA) Free Library. She has twice received Pennsylvania Council on the Arts fellowships, in creative non-fiction in 2003 and in fiction in 2007. Her fiction, poetry and nonfiction have appeared in Alexandria Quarterly, Apalachee Review, Apiary, The Alembic, Amoskeag, Blood Lotus, Bluestem, Boomer Lit, The Broadkill Review, Broad River Review, the Bryn Mawr Alumnae Bulletin, Calibanonline, California Quarterly (CQ), Carbon Culture Review, Chariton Review, Clarion, Common Ground Review, The Cortland Review, Cottonwood, Crack the Spine, The Critical Pass Review, DASH Literary Journal, Diverse Voices Quarterly, Drunk Monkeys, Eclipse, Edge, Edison Literary Review, Eureka Literary Magazine, Evening Street Review, Fifth Wednesday Journal, Figure 1, Folly, Forge, Four Corners, Gargoyle,  Glassworks, Grey Sparrow, The Griffin, Gulf Stream, the G.W. Review, HeartLodge, The Hollins Critic, The I-70 Review, Jelly Bucket, The Ledge, Licking River Review, Literary Mama, The Lindenwood Review, The Louisville Review, Mad Poets Review, The Magnolia Review, Melusine, Milk Money, The Muddy River Poetry Review, The Musehouse Journal, New South, Open: Journal of Arts & Letters, Organs of Vision & Sight (OVS), Paperplates, Passager, Pearl, The Penman Review, Perceptions, Peregrine, Permafrost, Philadelphia Poets, Pinyon, pioneertown, Plainsongs, Poet Lore, Poydras Review, The Progressive, The Puritan, Quiddity, Rough Copy, Rougarou, Sanskrit, Schuylkill Valley Journal, Sheila-Na-Gig Online, Sliver of Stone, Softblow, Storyscape, Straight Forward Poetry, Studio One, Summerset Review, Talking River Review, Vagabond City, The Virginia Normal, Vox Poetica, Whiskey Island, Wild Violet, Words and Images, Women. Period., The Wooster Review, and Xanadu. The story “The Reservoir” was performed for the 2002-2003 season of the Writing Aloud series hosted by the InterAct Theatre Company in Philadelphia and the poem “Twenty-Six Years” was included in the 2005 Poetry is Alive! Performance by the Ritz Theatre Company of Oaklyn, New Jersey.

Ms. Hicks has studied writing with Leonard Gontarek, Andrew Fetler, Pat Schneider, C.E. Poverman, Steve Orlen, Mary Carter and Robert Houston. She is 1982 graduate of Bryn Mawr College, and received an M.F.A. in Creative Writing with a concentration in fiction in 1987 from the University of Arizona, where she held a University Fellowship, the Anonymous Scholarship, and was a second-place winner of the Downs Award for Fiction, and a Writers at Work competition winner and judge. In 1986, she was a Working Scholar at Breadloaf Writers' Conference.

She was a Co-Editor of Sonora Review from 1987-88, after serving on their editorial staff and on those of The Massachusetts Review and The Progressive magazine. She has taught writing at the University of Arizona, the Authors' Resource Center in Tucson, Arizona, and Germantown Friends' School. She has also served in higher education as an admissions officer at Colgate University in New York State and at Bryn Mawr College, and as a grant writer and development consultant for Pennsylvania non-profit educational and cultural organizations.

In 1996 she trained with founder Pat Schneider in the Amherst Writers & Artists™ method, and founded Greater Philadelphia Wordshop Studio to offer creative writing workshops supporting writers in the development of their individual voices and in the practice of their craft. She is currently at work on collections of poetry, short fiction and creative non-fiction, and a novel.

 

Falling Dreams A chapbook of poems by Alison Hicks ©2006 Prompted Stories, Poems and Essays from the Greater Philadelphia Wordshop Studio ©2010 Love: A Story of Images, a novella by Alison Hicks ©2004 KISS Poems by Alison Hicks ©2011 You Who Took the Boat Out Poems by Alison Hicks ©2017 Knowing is a Branching Trail Poems by Alison Hicks ©2021 Workshops use the Amherst Writers & Artists™ writing group method