Biography
Sandra Dorr grew up in a Catholic section of Minneapolis, writing short stories, then worked as a writer and editor in New York and Paris before she saw the light and moved West. At U.C. Boulder, she did an M.A. in English/Creative Writing, and with the mentorship of Marilyn Krysl and Joy Harjo, began writing poems.
She wrote and voiced short lyrical prose for N.P.R. and Monitoradio, and returned to her journalistic roots as an editorial “Colorado Voices” writer for the Denver Post.
She has taught creative writing at eight colleges and universities, including Pacific College, Lewis & Clark, University of Wyoming and Washington State University-Vancouver, where she directed the writing program in the 1990s.’
In Grand Junction, she founded and directed the Western Colorado Writers’ Forum for its first four years. She recently completed a two-year poetry residency for Hope West Hospice, finishing a full-length collection of poems, This Body of Light (forthcoming, Hope West Press).
Her work has won two state literature awards, the American Fiction award, the “New Discovery” Poetry Award, and poetry awards from the Colorado Poetry Society, Salt Hill and the New Delta Review, among others. She’s truly grateful for her time at Yaddo, Ucross, and other writing colonies, and most recently, in 2016, the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology.
Desert Water, her first book of poems, appeared from Lithic Press in 2009. She’s back at work on a novel.
She loves to teach and tutor teens and adults, and can be found roaming rivers, monasteries and nature sanctuaries with groups of writers she takes on Women’s Wilderness Writing retreats in Oregon, Colorado and Utah.
Come visit www.sandradorr.com
