Dr. Laura Donnelly is another great example of why attending SUNY Oswego could be the best decision an aspiring writer can make.
Dr. Donnelly received her MFA in Poetry from the renowned Purdue University and her Ph.D in English/Creative Writing from Western Michigan University. Laura’s official title is as an assistant professor of English and creative writing at SUNY Oswego, and she specifically focuses her teaching on the art of poetry writing. However, her teaching interests also include an even more expansive variety of writing topics: creative nonfiction writing, literary publishing, gender studies, and Victorian and Modern British literature, of which she taught several courses before teaching at SUNY Oswego.
A year ago she moved to Oswego with her husband, and through e-mail explained, “We were struck right away by the supportiveness and the good energy of the writing and arts community here. I love how involved the creative writing students are in readings, performances, and publications, and how the town complements this.”
Laura is referring to the River’s End bookstore, an independent, locally-owned bookstore right on Oswego’s Main Street, which hosts many readings by students, faculty, and local writers within the community. Recently, Dr. Donnelly published her first full-length collection of poetry, Watershed, which she read at her book launch party hosted by the river’s end bookstore just last week in celebration of her exciting accomplishment. Even more impressive is that Watershed won the 2013 Cider Press Review Editors Prize, a feat within a feat.
Additionally, Laura has published a shorter book of poetry, a chapbook entitled Nocturne–Schumann’s Letters. She’s published poems in several literary journals, such as DIAGRAM, Flyway, Poetry East, Rhino, and others.
Laura’s poems in Watershed have been described as “[l]ovely and urgent in their strangeness . . . [the poems] conjure spaces to dwell in and return to, spaces of astonishment held by a deft ear for inner experience and a numinous power to sense back toward the ancestral” (Jennifer K. Sweeney, Cider Press Review).
While certainly diligent and occupied by her writing and teaching, Laura enjoys knitting, birdwatching, travelling, and hiking on her downtime. She also practices yoga and takes advantage of the services offered by North Coast Yoga in Oswego.