Biographical Note:

Paula Sergi was selected by the Hessen Literary Society as the Wisconsin writer to act as the 2005 Cultural Ambassador for the Hessen-Wisconsin Writers Exchange. She is the author of Family Business, a collection of poems from Finishing Line Press, 2005. She co-edited Boomer Girls: Poems by Women from the Baby Boom Generation, University of Iowa Press, 1999. Sergi received a Wisconsin Arts Board Artist Fellowship in 2001. Her poetry is published regularly in such journals as The Bellevue Literary Review, Primavera,Crab Orchard Review, and Spoon River Poetry Review and her writing has been featured recently in the American Journal of Nursing. She holds an MFA in creative writing from Vermont College and a BSN from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Formerly a lecturer in the English Department at the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh, she teaches creative writing at Ripon College, and lives in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin.

She has been selected for artist residencies at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and Ragdale. During the promotional tour for Boomer Girls, Ms. Sergi gave readings throughout the Midwest, and was interviewed by Susan Stamberg for NPR.

Her work has been anthologized in Sweeping Beauty: Poems of Housework (Fall 2005), Intensive Care: Poetry and Prose by Nurses, 2003, Fire in the Womb: Mothers and Creativity, 2003, and Climate Controlled. In addition, her poems have placed in national contests, including The Sow’s Ear Poetry Review contest in 2001 and Rosebud Magazine’s William Stafford Poetry Prize in 2002.

One of her interests is the intersect of science and poetry, informed by her BS in Nursing and experience as a nurse. She worked as a staff nurse at University of Wisconsin Hospitals, as a public health nurse with various county departments, and as a visiting nurse in Portland, Oregon.

Author’s Commentary:

My poems explore the Midwest and the world that I inhabit as a woman, author, wife, mother, daughter, sister and nurse. Relationships are central to my writing as I explore both the natural setting and the interpersonal landscape. These explorations bring understated humor and psychological insight to the complex relationship between commonality and independence.

As outer manifestations of my inner life, I invoke landscapes -- winter and summer, frozen and fluid worlds where the inner and outer blend, where present and past merge.

My writing and work history demonstrate a passionate love of language and a commitment to share it as lecturer, artist in residence, featured poet and teacher. I’ve taught creative writing to people of all ages and educational levels.

My comfort and delight in public speaking are reflected in the many readings I’ve done at conferences, book stores and community centers.