people
Lissa Kiernan, Executive Director & treasurer
Lissa Kiernan’s second collection of poetry, The Whispering Wall, won Homebound Publications’ Poetry Prize and was a semi-finalist for the Dorset Prize.
Her first book of prose, Glass Needles & Goose Quills, won the Nautilus Gold for lyric prose and took first place in the Independent Book Awards’ cross-genre category.
Two Faint Lines in the Violet, Lissa’s first poetry collection, was a finalist for both the Foreword Indies and Julie Suk awards.
Lissa is the founding director of The Poetry Barn, a pollinator habitat for poetry in the Hudson Valley, and AIM Higher, a nonprofit dedicated to serving writers and artists.
She lives in the Catskill Mountains near the Ashokan Reservoir’s spillway with her husband, Chris, and a fluctuating number of felines.
Kim Noriega, President & Board Chair
Kim Noriega is the author of the collection, Name Me, the title poem of which was a finalist for the Joy Harjo Poetry Prize. She was also the winner of the San Miguel de Allende Flash Nonfiction Prize and a finalist for the Edna St. Vincent Millay Poetry Prize. Her poem, “Heaven, 1963” was featured in former Poet Laureate Ted Kooser’s syndicated column, American Life in Poetry. Kim recently retired from a 30-year career with San Diego Public Library as the head of its family literacy program. She is a Teaching Artist with Poetry Barn and President of the Board of Directors for AIM Higher. She is a certified facilitator of the Creative Regeneration Process and a consultant in family literacy through the Pacific Library Partnership. She lives in San Diego with her husband, Ernie, and 6 cats, 5 of whom were formerly feral.
Tina Barry, Vice President & Board of Directors
Tina Barry is the author of Beautiful Raft (Big Table Publishing, 2019) and Mall Flower (Big Table Publishing, 2016). Tina’s poems and fiction have appeared in numerous literary publications such as The Best Small Fictions 2020(spotlighted story) and 2016, Inch Magazine, The American Poetry Journal, The Fourth River, ONE ART: a journal of poetry, Gyroscope, Nasty Women Poets: An Anthology of Subversive Verse, A Constellation of Kisses and upcoming in Rattle. Tina holds an MFA in creative writing from Long Island University, Brooklyn (2014). She is a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee and has several Best of the Net nods. Tina is a manuscript consultant and a teaching artist at The Poetry Barn and Writers.com.
Maureen Alsop, Secretary & Board of Directors
Maureen Alsop, Ph.D. is the author of Later, Knives & Trees; Pyre; Mirror Inside Coffin; Mantic; Apparition Wren; and several chapbooks. Her poems have been nominated for Pushcart Prize on numerous occasions. Her translations of the poetry of Juana de Ibarbourou (Uruguay, 1892-1979) and Mario Domínguez Parra are available through Poetry Salzburg Review. She teaches online with the Poetry Barn and is the book editor for Poemeleon.
Joshua Davis, Board of Directors
Joshua Davis is the author of Reversal Spells in Blue and Black and, with Allison Blevins, the co-author of Chorus for the Kill (both from Seven Kitchens Press). He holds an MFA from Stonecoast at the University of Southern Maine, an MFA from the University of Mississippi, and an M.A. from Pittsburg State University. A former John and Renee Grisham fellow, he offers online workshops and private mentoring at The Poetry Barn. Recent poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Inflectionist Review, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, The New Southern Fugitives, Tinfish, and Apalachee Review. He is a doctoral candidate in Literature at Ohio University, and he teaches high school English near Tampa, Florida.
Advisory Council
Barbara Esmark, Advisor
Barbara (Bobbi) Esmark ’84 works as an artist and writer and has professionally supported and promoted the arts, public higher education and the environment for the past 40 years. She served as associate vice president for university advancement at the California State University, Fullerton and director of development at the Mohonk Preserve. She is an award-winning graphic designer; her prints have been published in national visual arts magazines and her paintings and prints are in private collections throughout the United States. She is a published poet. She is the owner and director of Bravo Echo Gallery in High Falls, is currently the president of the Marbletown Arts Association and serves on the board of directors of the Woodstock School of Art and the Samuel Dorsky Museum at SUNY New Paltz.
Ms. Esmark has a BFA in painting from the State University of New York, New Paltz, and had her fundamental training in drawing, painting and anatomy at Art Students League in New York. She has her studio and lives in High Falls, NY.
Gail Straub, Advisor
A visionary pioneer and activist in the field of empowerment, Gail Straub co-founded the Empowerment Institute in 1981. One of the world’s leading authorities on women’s empowerment, she co-founded IMAGINE: A Global Initiative for the Empowerment of Women to help women heal from violence, build strong lives, and contribute to their community. IMAGINE initiatives are currently under way throughout Africa, India, and the Middle East where they have impacted over half a million lives. Gail is the author of seven books that have garnered multiple awards including with her husband David Gershon, the best-selling Empowerment which has been translated into over 14 languages, the critically acclaimed The Rhythm of Compassion, her feminist memoir Returning to My Mother’s House, and two books written as love letters to her mountain valley, The Ashokan Way: Landscape’s Path into Consciousness, and in collaboration with the artist Kate McGloughlin, Solace and Sanctuary: The Ashokan’s Enduring Gifts. Gail Straub’s white paper entitled The Missing Piece in the Empowerment Equation is considered a seminal contribution in the field of human agency. She has contributed to various anthologies on women’s empowerment including Enlightened Power: How Women Are Transforming The Practice of Leadership. She lives in the Hudson River Valley in New York.