A native of Northern Virginia, Cathy Hailey teaches as an adjunct lecturer in Johns Hopkins University’s online MA in Teaching Writing program. Previously she taught English and Creative Writing in Prince William County (PWC), VA, for forty years, her favorite years as part of the Center for the Fine and Performing Arts Creative Writing Program. She sponsored the award-winning Eddas Literary/Art Magazine for thirty-three years.
Hailey graduated from Duke University with an AB (Artium Baccalaureus) in English and earned an MA in English, with a concentration in Professional Writing and Editing, from George Mason University. She has been a Teacher-Consultant for the Northern Virginia Writing Project (NVWP) since 1981 and later co-directed with a focus on the Student Summer Institute and Young Writers Workshops. In 2010, she won the Mark Farrington Personal Writing Award, which supported her first attendance at the Geraldine Dodge Poetry Festival, inspiring her to prioritize her own poetry writing.
As a member of the Prince William Poet Laureate Circle, Hailey organizes, In the Company of Laureates, a biennial reading of poets laureate held in PWC. She serves as Northern Region Vice President of The Poetry Society of Virginia. For PSV, she hosts Where Art Meets the Line, a poetry reading series featuring poet artists, and she cohosts Virginia Voices, a monthly poetry reading and interview series. She enjoys collaborations with poets, visual artists, and musicians, including Springtime in Winter, Peace & Identity, Tapestry of Peace & Justice, and DC Unsettled. She was invited as a guest poet to The Word Works’ final Joaquin Miller Poetry program, an event honoring Jacklyn Potter.
Hailey’s writing has been published in The New Verse News, Poetry Virginia, Written in Arlington, Stay Salty: Life in the Garden State (Vol. 2), Poetry for Ukraine (THE POET), Family (THE POET), and NoVA Bards. Poems are forthcoming in The Poetry Society of Virginia Centennial Anthology. Her poetry chapbook, I’d Rather Be a Hyacinth is available for preorder at Finishing Line Press and is expected to be published in January 2023.
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