Donna Reis is a poet and nonfiction writer. She co-edited and contributed to the poetry anthology Blues for Bill: A Tribute to William Matthews (The University of Akron Press, 2005) with Kurt Brown, Meg Kearney and Estha Weiner. Her non-fiction book Seeking Ghosts in the Warwick Valley, was published by Schiffer Publishing, LTD in 2003. She is the author of two chapbooks of poetry, Incantations (1995) and Dog Shows and Church (2000) from Eurydice Press. Her poetry manuscript What’s on the Walls, is currently being marketed for publication.
Donna’s poetry and essays have been published in The American Book Review, Cumberland Poetry Review, Hanging Loose, Hudson Valley Magazine, Mudfish, and elsewhere. Her poetry has been anthologized in: Women and Death (Ground Torpedo Press, 1994); 1996 Emily Dickinson Award Anthology (Universities West Press, 1997); Beyond Lament, Poets of the World Bearing Witness to the Holocaust (Northwestern University Press, 1998); The Billee Murray Denny Poetry Anthology 1997 – 1998 (Lincoln College, 1999); and Chance of a Ghost, An Anthology of Contemporary Ghost Poems (Helicon Nine Editions, 2005).
She received the Meyer Cohn Essay Award in Literature in 2000 and the James Ruoff Memorial Essay Award in 2002 from The City College of New York. Donna studied with Marilyn Hacker and the late William Matthews at The City College, City University of New York where she completed her Master of Arts in Creative Writing in 2002. In 1987, she received a Master of Science in Elementary Education from Hunter College, City University of New York.
Donna was born in Greenwich, Connecticut and now lives in Montgomery, New York, with her Bernese Mountain Dog, Seanachie, and her three cats: Amelia, Franny & Zooey.