Anne McCrady

Anne McCrady believes every moment is poetic and every life is an inspirational story. Her award-winning poetry collections and many anthologized poems bring that perspective to her writing.

Her writing appears in literary journals, arts magazines and international anthologies. Her first book of poems, Along Greathouse Road, won the 2003 Edwin M. Eakin Memorial Manuscript Award from the Poetry Society of Texas, and her peace poetry collection, Under a Blameless Moon, won the 2007 Pudding House Chapbook Prize. Her most recent poetry collection is Letting Myself In from Dos Gatos Press. She has also written an inspirational parable called Kevin and the Seven Prayers, along with oral narratives she performs on stage. Anne is a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee and a frequent poetry judge, editor and critic. Her work has been set to music as art song, used in worship settings and at funerals and studied in college courses. Her current project is a libretto for a modern opera.

Anne's poems and stories range from family interactions and women's experiences to global street scenes and natural settings, always conjuring vivid images and unforgettable perspectives, using language that sings and metaphors that excite.

As comfortable on stage as she is on the page, Anne delights in connecting with audiences through poetry readings, motivational speaking, storytelling, literary presentations and peace advocacy through her company, InSpiritry – Putting Words to Work for a Better World. She is a co-sponsor of the Young Audiences of Northeast Texas Poetry in Schools contest and co-founder /co-director of the Art of Peace Festival in Tyler, Texas. Anne also offers writing, spoken word and storytelling sessions called OpenWords for those whose voices need to be heard.

Online, her positive outreach includes daily social media postings, weekly Poet with a Press Pass news-related poems, SoundCloud recordings of her work, a daily Facebook prompt called the InSpiritry Question for the Day and motivational content at InSpiritry.com.

Southern, spiritual, liberal, inspired by Nature and educated in science, Anne is the mother of three amazing adult children and four wonderful granddaughters. She lives in Tyler, Texas, with her husband and favorite reader, Dr. Mike McCrady.