| William Pitt Root |
| Poet, Photographer, Professor (and so much more) |
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| Born in a blizzard but raised among the alligators, gars, mosquitoes, fiddler crabs and egrets swarming between the Everglades and Gulf of Mexico, William Pitt Root has chosen to live ever since in regions characterized by a certain raw native tang. |
| He regularly commutes between Winston-Salem, North Carolina -- to be with his wife, Pamela Uschuk, Director of Salem College's Center for Women Writers -- and New York City, where he teaches in the Hunter College MFA Program. |
| Honors include major awards from the Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundations, the N.E.A., a Stegner Fellowship, and Stanley Kunitz and Guy Owen Poetry Prizes plus three Pushcart Awards. Poems by Root have been translated into Russian, Hebrew, Yiddish (for broadcast over Radio Free Europe), and into Japanese, Swedish, Spanish, Macedonian, etc.; they have appeared in hundreds of periodicals such as New Yorker, Nation, Harpers, The Atlantic, APR, Poetry, and in over 80 anthologies. He also publishes short stories, essays, reviews, and has collaborated on two award-winning short films. Root has worked as an underground miner in Arizona, bouncer in Seattle, experimental subject in the first manned space flight program, Poet-in-the-Schools in 8 states and on the Crow, Wind River, No. Cheyenne and Yaqui nations; Writer-in-Residencies include Amherst College, Interlochen Arts Academy, University of Montana, Wichita State, Pacific Lutheran University, and New York University. |
| William Pitt Root enjoys giving readings and workshops and has read or lectured at such distinguished or exotic locales as: |
| Nuyorican Poetry Cafe Vassar College Saigon Hotel/ Ho Chi Mihn City Julliard New York University Harvard University Law School Speed Art Museum/ Louisville Greenhaven Maximun Security Prison The International Poetry Festival in Malmo, Sweden |
| Lund University Center for Comtemporary Photography Deep South Writers Conference/Lafayette Ruidoso Downs Guggenheim Museum Columbia University Tuscon Poetry Festival Bumbershoot Poetry Festival M. I. T. Poetry Crawls 1, 2, & 3/ Tucson |
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| Bridge Over The River Drim, Lake Ochrid, Macedonia He's among the poets about to read to an audience of 5,000 for Struga Poetry Evenings 2002] |
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| Information provided by Jennifer Lorca Root |