More About the Author
Steven Riel's first chapbook of poetry, How to Dream, was published in 1992 by Amherst Writers & Artists Press. Its publication was made possible in part by a grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. The book went into its second printing in 1993. His second chapbook, The Spirit Can Crest, also published by AWA Press, came out in 2003.
Riel's third chapbook, Postcard from P-town, was selected as runner-up for the inaugural Robin Becker Chapbook Prize, and was published by Seven Kitchens Press in 2009.
His poems have been published in several anthologies, including Lives in Translation: An Anthology of Contemporary Franco-American Writings; Men Talk: An Anthology of Male Experience Poetry; New Men, New Minds: Breaking Male Tradition; Boyhood, Growing Up Male: A Multicultural Anthology, and The Badboy Book of Erotic Poetry. Riel's poetry has appeared in numerous periodicals, including Christopher Street, the minnesota review, The Antigonish Review, The James White Review, Art & Understanding, St. Andrews Review, and The G.W. Review.
Riel's essays have appeared in The Day We Met: The Very First Day of Long-Term Relationships; Liberating Minds: The Stories and Professional Lives of Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Librarians; and My Diva: 65 Gay Men on the Women Who Inspire Them.
Christopher Bursk named Riel the 2005 Robert Fraser Distinguished Visiting Poet at Bucks County Community College in Pennsylvania. One of his poems, "Bird's-Eye View," was selected by Denise Levertov as runner-up for the Grolier Poetry Peace Prize in 1987.
Riel served as poetry editor of RFD: A Country Journal for Gay Men Everywhere from 1987 to 1995.
In 2008, he received an MFA in Poetry from New England College, where he was the recipient of a Joel Oppenheimer Scholarship.
