Women's Words on May 10, 2015, featured Julie Gard of Duluth reading three poems, "Northwestern Ontario," "Aubade," and "Zipline."
Julie Gard has slept well since becoming a parent, except for when she doesn't. She loves living in an atmospheric old house, except for rotting storm windows and other constant, niggling repairs. She loves her backyard full of berries though not when picking bucket #11. While she used to live for dangerous world travel, she is now a committed homebody, albeit one who envisions spending the occasional night on the other end of town in a canned ham trailer.
When not pondering the metaphorical possibilities of estuaries and litter, Julie teaches writing at the University of Wisconsin - Superior. In other news, she has a B.A. in English from Grinnell College, an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Minnesota, and a certificate proving she survived a year of dodging car bombs in Vladivostok, Russia as a Fulbright Graduate Fellow.
The Barbara Deming Memorial Fund and Arrowhead Regional Arts Council have been kind enough to grant her grants. Her prose poems and stories have appeared in 40 or so literary magazines and anthologies, she has given 30 or so readings, and altogether she has 20 fingers and toes, unlike her Russian-Armenian host father, who has 19 1/2. She has published two chapbooks and has a full-length collection, Home Studies, the winner of the 2013 Many Voices Project at New Rivers Press and forthcoming in October 2015.
Julie lives a block from Lake Superior in Duluth, Minnesota with her partner and two no-longer-warring cats. Her daughter, she is still getting used to saying, lives across town.
