Jackie Sheeler

Jackie Sheeler is a lifelong New Yorker and a lifelong juggler: poet, performance artist, songwriter, wordrocker, publisher, blogger, producer and webmaster.

"Earthquake Came to Harlem" is Jackie’s fourth book. Her first full-length collection, "The Memory Factory", won the Magellan Prize and was published by Buttonwood Press in 2002. A year later she edited an anthology, "Off the Cuffs: Poetry By and About the Police" that was published by Soft Skull. In 2005, a 14-track wordrock CD, Talk Engine, was released to great reviews. More recently, a chapbook of prose poems entitled to[o] long was published by Three Rooms Press.

Her work has been widely anthologized and has appeared in New York Quarterly, Rattapallax, Painted Bride Quarterly, Phoebe, Slant, and many other journals. She had the honor of writing the debut First Person essay for New York Press, and received The Bohemian Chronicle award for Best Short Story of 1993. Performance highlights include The People’s Poetry Gathering at Cooper Union, Symphony Space, WBAI and NPR radio, CBGB’s, The Poetry Project, Bowery Poetry Club and Nuyorican Poets Café (to name just a few).

Jackie has taught workshops at The Writer’s Voice as well as at drug rehabs and prisons (which led to her holding for a time the title “Poet Laureate of Riker’s Island”, about which Martín Espada said, “Being Poet Laureate of Riker's Island is far more honorable and valuable than being Poet Laureate of the United States”). She founded the poetz.com website in 1999 which, in addition to being one of the first online literary zines, remains *the* go-to site for information about poetry events in NYC. 1999 also marked the beginning of her weekly reading series at The Cornelia Street Cafe, which has featured many poets of national reputation and continues to this day.

She is presently working on recording an album of original songs and completing development of a one-woman show under the direction of Kat Georges, both projects to be released in late 2010.

Current info and events can be found on her website, www.jackiesheeler.com