Wilda Morris has served as president of both the Illinois State Poetry Society and Poets & Patrons, a Chicago-based poetry organization for which she continues to serve as Workshop Chairperson. For three years, she chaired the Stevens Manuscript Competition for the National Federation of State Poetry Societies. She has led poetry workshops for children and for adults in several states. For several years she was on the staff of the Christian Writers’ Conference at the Green Lake Conference Center in Wisconsin.
Wilda’s first book of poetry, Szechwan Shrimp and Fortune Cookies: Poems from a Chinese Restaurant, was published by RWG Press in 2008. In 2019, Aldrich Press (Kelsay Books) published Pequod Poems: Gamming with Moby-Dick, which garnered her an opportunity to do a reading at Arrowhead, the estate where Herman Melville wrote his masterpiece.
Wilda has published widely in journals, anthologies, websites, and newspapers, and has won rewards for formal poetry, free verse, and haiku, including the 2019 Founders’ Award from the National Federation of State Poetry Societies. Wilda Morris’s Poetry Challenge at wildamorris.blogspot.com provides a contest for other poets each month. For over 15 years, she has been the mc for poetry readings at Brewed Awakening in Westmont, Illinois, co-sponsored by the coffeeshop and the Illinois State Poetry Society.
Wilda is a graduate of American University in Washington, D.C., and of the University of Illinois. She also has an M.Div.
She lives in Bolingbrook, Illinois, with her husband Ed. They have five children, fifteen grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.
Paperback: 103 pages
Publisher: Kelsay Books (June 14, 2023)