Susan Aizenberg received the Levis Reading Prize for 2003 for Muse, her first full-length collection of poetry (published as part of the Crab Orchard Award Series in Poetry for 2002 by Southern Illinois University Press). Muse was also awarded the Nebraska Center for the Book Prize for the Best Book of Poetry by a Nebraska poet in 2002. Aizenberg is the coeditor, with Erin Belieu, of The Extraordinary Tide: New Poetry by American Women (Columbia, 2001), a contributing editor and former poetry editor of The Nebraska Review, and author of a chapbook-length collection, Peru, which appears in Take Three: 2: AGNI New Poets Series (Graywolf, 1997), chosen as a "Recommended Book" by the poetry and small press editors of Amazon.com and as a "Noted Book" by American Poet. Aizenberg received the 2003 Distinguished Artist Award from the Nebraska Arts Council, which has also twice awarded her an Individual Artist’s Fellowship. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Journal, AGNI, Chelsea, Prairie Schooner, The Laurel Review, Third Coast, ONTHEBUS, and The Prague Review. Aizenberg holds an MFA in creative writing from Vermont College and is currently an assistant professor of English and creative writing at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska.  

Photo by Denise Brady