Celisa Steele lives, works, and writes in Carrboro, North Carolina, where she served as the town’s poet laureate from 2013 to 2016. Her poetry has appeared in Southern Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, Cave Wall, Raleigh Review, Comstock Review, Tar River Poetry, Poetry South, San Pedro River Review, and others and has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

In 2011, Emrys Press published her chapbook, How Language Is Lost. In blurbs for the chapbook, Ron Rash described Celisa as “one of the Carolinas’ finest poets,” and Janice Moore Fuller called her “a nimble metalinguist.” Anthony S. Abbott described How Language Is Lost as “a delightful play of language, a sheer joy at how language is not lost, how language can take any experience and transform it into passion, into humor, into fresh and unusual insights into the seemingly ordinary experiences of life.” Copies of How Language Is Lost are no longer available, but Celisa is currently working on finding a home for her first full-length poetry collection.

Celisa is a lifetime member of the North Carolina Poetry Society, which she has served in various capacities over the years, including as vice president in charge of programs and as co-editor of Pinesong, the society’s annual anthology of prize-winning poems. She also served on the board of the North Carolina Poetry Council prior to its merger with the North Carolina Poetry Society.

Celisa is co-founder and managing director of Tagoras, a consulting firm that partners with professional and trade associations, continuing education units, training firms, and other learning businesses to help them to understand market realities and potential, to connect better with existing customers and find new ones, and to make smart investment decisions around product development and portfolio management. Her activities at Tagoras include writing and editing reports and executive briefings on different aspects of professional development, continuing education, and lifelong learning; co-hosting a weekly podcast; and speaking at online and in-person conferences and events.

If you’d like to invite Celisa to read or have a question, e-mail her at celisa@celisasteele.com.