Jerilyn Elise Miripol, Neighbor

I was awarded a Fellowship at The Ragdale Foundation in 1985. I was accepted to The Breadloaf Writers’ Conference in Middlebury, Vermont and The Aspen Writers’ Workshop. I received a full-tuition scholarship to The Squaw Valley Community of Writers where I studied with poet, Sandra McPherson. I was asked to study with Pulitzer-Prize poet, Lisel Mueller at The University of Indiana in Bloomington. I was a nominee of The Danforth Foundation. My poetry is published in “Group Psychotherapy: Practice and Development” by Barry Levine, PhD, published by Prentice-Hall. I am a poet-in-the-prisons teaching writing to prisoners (poetry, memoir, journal writing) as well as sending them relevant books for their education: Lexington, Kentucky; The Pontiac Correctional Center in Illinois and Joliet Prison. I teach the prisoners through regular mail.

I was a writing-therapist in the Psychology Department at St. Francis Hospital in Evanston. I worked with students who were on psychological disability: Medicare, Medicaid, SSDI and Section eight or HUD housing. I taught creative writing at Oakton Community College. I have been a member and former vice-president-of-programs of PPSEAWA (Pan Pacific Southeast Asian Women’s Association), an NGO of the United Nations that helps girls from undeveloped countries to receive a high school and college education. I attended their National Meeting at The United Nations in New York and their International Meeting in Auckland, New Zealand.

Published poetry books: A Complete Mute-Light on Amazon; Disc of the Sun, and The Sounds Were Distilled.