Dawson recently finished work on her 2nd collection of poems, Cottontail, as well as an essay, “The Fictive Who: Abjection, Authorship, and Inwardness in Astrophil and Stella.” Her debut collection of poems, Big-Eyed Afraid, was published in the US and UK in 2007.
Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Best American Poetry 2008, VQR, Alehouse Review, Harvard Review, Barrow Street, the Swallow Anthology of New American Poets, and other journals and anthologies. This July, she continued work for the Sewanee Writers’ Conference; and, she attended the Key West Literary Seminar, as a featured guest, in winter 2010.
In Cincinnati, Dawson was an active member of the arts community, reading in several public venues, guest lecturing at the School for the Performing Arts and working with Performance Time and Arts, a nonprofit organization in the city. She is very excited to join the lively Tampa Bay Area artistic community.
Charles Phelps Taft Dissertation Fellowship, University of Cincinnati, September 2009.
Winner, Breakfast of Champions, University of Cincinnati, April 2009. (Teaching award given by a STARS Scholarship Program graduating senior to the teacher who, in the student’s final year of undergraduate studies, has had the biggest impact on their academics.)
Selection for The Best American Poetry 2008(“Parallax”).
Best Debut of 2007, Contemporary Poetry Review (Big-Eyed Afraid).
2006 Anthony Hecht PoetryPrize, Mary Jo Salter, judge. (Publication of Big-Eyed Afraid as the year’s best first or second collection of poetry)
Alfred C. Yates Fellowship, University of Cincinnati, September 2006.
Elliston Fellowship in Poetry, Department of English and Comparative Literature, University of Cincinnati, September 2006.
Academy of American Poets’ Prize, The Ohio State University, May 2006.
Commendation for Exemplary Teaching, Department of English, The Ohio State University, First-Year Writing Program, June 2005.