Richard Michelson
Visiting Alumni Poet, Winter 2017
Profile
Richard Michelson’s many books for children, teens and adults have been listed among the Ten Best of the Year by The New York Times, Publishers Weekly, and The New Yorker; and among the best Dozen of the Decade by Amazon.com.
He has been a finalist for the Massachusetts Book Award (3X), the National Jewish Book Award (3X), the Harlem Book Fest Award, and he is the only author ever awarded both the Sydney Taylor Gold and Silver Medals in a single year from the Association of Jewish Libraries.
Michelson hosts Northampton Poetry Radio, and served two terms as Poet Laureate of Northampton, MA. In 2008 Clemson University named Michelson their R. J. Calhoun Distinguished Reader in American Literature. Michelson is the recipient of a 2016 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowship for his latest poetry collection, More Money than God (Pitt Poetry Series), which was also a finalist for the 2016 Paterson Prize. In 1982 Michelson was the very first recipient of a Vermont College MFA in Poetry degree!