I’m a Canadian/American who was born in Abbotsford, B.C., and raised in Bellingham, Washington, where I worked as a commercial fisherman on my father’s purse seiner in Puget Sound and Southeast Alaska. I now live in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where I work as a writer, editor and teacher.
I earned my B.A. in English and M.A. in Theater/Dance from Western Washington State College. As a journalist, I was a staff writer and editor for the Seattle Times, the Washington (D.C.) Times and the Santa Fe New Mexican, and managing editor of several international magazines. I also served as a public information officer for five different government agencies, owned an in-home tutoring franchise, worked as a learning specialist and have edited numerous books and poetry collections.
I have taught at Western Washington University, the Institute of American Indian Arts, the Port Townsend Writers Conference and elsewhere, and I lead workshops and participate in frequent readings, both online and in person. My poems have appeared in Tupelo Press, Slipstream, Nimrod, The New Guard, Writer’s Digest, great weather for media, The Floating Bridge Press Anthology, The California Quarterly, New England Anthology of Poets, Thanatos and many other journals and anthologies.
My awards include the Fischer Prize, the SICA Poems for Peace Poetry Prize and the Santa Fe Reporter War Poetry Contest, and I have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and four Best of the Net awards.
My poetry collections include Twenty Poems from the Blue House (with poet/painter Alice Lee, Whistle Lake Press, 2003), Doggeral & Caterwauls: Poems Inspired by Cats and Dogs (Red Mountain Press, 2012), The Underside of Light (Aldrich Press, 2013), Googling a Present Participle: Poems, Prose Poems, Bogus Monologues & Fraudulent Artifacts (Kelsay Books, 2015) and Buddha’s Cat (Whistle Lake Press, 2024). My collection Dining on Salt: Four Seasons of Septets is forthcoming from Cornerstone Press in April 2025.
I am the founder and host of the online poetry/meditation community Tuesday Poetry Practice, which meets every Tuesday at 11 a.m. MT for an hour of poetry and meditation. You can join the Zoom call here.
I enjoy meditation, yoga, walking, gardening, photography, music, cooking and travel.
Awards:
“Psalm 656,” winner of 2012 Fischer Prize
“Cold Mountain,“ winner of the Subud International Cultural Association (SICA) Poems for Peace Award
“Just Like John Glenn,” semi-finalist in Knightsville Poetry Contest
Click here for a complete list of awards.
Interview on Beyond the Cover: Exploring Passions
Interviews on KSFR’s “The Last Word” with host Carly Newfeld:
May 23, 2024:
Jan 12, 2023
Oct. 7, 2021
“This is one of the best of your programs Carly. It was wonderful, really flowed from beginning to end. Wayne is a beautiful poet; why is he not known as well as Mary Oliver, and hundreds of others? Perhaps because he doesn’t pursue the limelight so aggressively like others do. I can tell he’s a gentle soul. So sorry to hear about his beautiful wife Alice. I will look at his website and see when his poetry workshops happen.”
–Sarah Newfeld-Green
Watch my Chatter Sunday reading from Sept. 23, 2012 in Albuquerque on YouTube
(“We loved you and your unexpected, deadpan quirkiness. You are a delight and we would love to have you back.”)