Biography

Dawn Potter directs the Frost Place Conference on Poetry and Teaching, held each summer at Robert Frost's home in Franconia, New Hampshire. She works extensively as a visiting writer in the schools and as a freelance editor for literary and academic presses.

Dawn's most recent book is an anthology, A Poet's Sourcebook: Writings about Poetry, from the Ancient World to the Present (Autumn House Press, 2013). She is the author of two collections of poetry--Boy Land & Other Poems (Deerbrook Editions, 2004) and How the Crimes Happened (CavanKerry Press, 2010)--with a third, Same Old Story, due out from CavanKerry in 2014. She has also published a memoir, Tracing Paradise: Two Years in Harmony with John Milton (University of Massachusetts Press, 2009), which won the 2010 Maine Literary Award in Nonfiction. Twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize, she has received grants and fellowships from the Elizabeth George Foundation, the Writer's Center, and the Maine Arts Commission. New poems and essays appear in the Sewanee Review, the Threepenny Review, Guernica, and many other journals in the United States and abroad. Currently Dawn is working on a two new projects: Chestnut Ridge, a history-in-verse of southwestern Pennsylvania; and The Conversation: Learning to Be a Poet, an anthology and writing guide, due out from Autumn House Press in 2014.

In addition to writing, Dawn sings and plays fiddle with the band String Field Theory. She lives in Harmony, Maine, with photographer Thomas Birtwistle and their two sons.