Glenn G. Coats

Glenn G. Coats was an elementary school teacher for thirty-four years, and taught first through fifth-grade students as well as Reading Recovery, a one-to-one early intervention for first graders having a difficult time learning to read. His poetry collection about children who struggle with reading and writing, Trying to Move Mountains, was published by the Reading Recovery Council of North America. He is a five-time Pushcart nominee.

Glenn’s work has been published in many magazines and journals including: The Journal of Reading Recovery, The Running Record, Learning, Poet, Haibun Today, Contemporary Haibun Online, Bottlerockets, The Heron’s Nest, Presence, Frogpond, Modern Haiku, Acorn, Shamrock Haiku Journal, Wales Haiku Journal, among others. His stories have been published in Highlights for Children where he was twice named Author of the Month. A children’s book, Waiting for a Frog, was published in 1997 by Kaeden and is now in its fifth printing.

He lives with his wife Joan in Carolina Shores, North Carolina. They enjoy exploring the nearby waterways. Glenn’s haiku collection about rivers, Furrows of Snow, was published by Turtle Light Press in 2019; it received an honorable mention in the 2020 Merit Book Awards sponsored by the Haiku Society of America. Glenn is the author of five haibun collections: Snow on the Lake, Beyond the Muted Trees (Pineola Press), Waking and Dream (Red Moon Press) which won a 2018 Merit Book Award for best book of haibun, Degrees of Acquaintance (Snapshot Press 2019) which was a Snapshot Press eChapbook Award winner, and A Synonym for Gone (Snapshot Press 2021). Another Lost Boat (haiku, free verse, haibun) was published in 2022 (Pineola Press). Along with writing, Glenn enjoys playing guitar with his children as well as in the band Chicken Bog.