Grimm, Susan

Born: 1952
Ohio connection: Birth

Cleveland

Susan Grimm was born in Cleveland, Ohio and grew up on the west side of the city until age thirteen, when her family moved to Brecksville, Ohio.  Grimm, who has a B.A. in Anthropology and an M.A. in English from Cleveland State University, did not pursue writing seriously until she was in her thirties.  In 2007, she received an M.F.A. in Poetry from the NEOMFA (Northeast Ohio Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing) program at Cleveland State University.  She was managing editor of The Gamut, Cleveland State University’s general interest magazine, and a founding editor of Ohio Writer, a service newsletter for writers.  She has taught creative writing at Case Western Reserve University and Cleveland State University, and was editor of the Cleveland State University Poetry Center for three years.

Grimm’s poems have appeared in many publications, including:  Blackbird, Rattapallax, Spoon River Poetry Review, Poetry East,The Seneca ReviewFront PorchThe Journal, and others.  Her chapbook, Almost Home, was published by the Cleveland State University Poetry Center in 1997. Her book of poems, Lake Erie Blue, was published by BkMk Press in 2004. Grimm edited Ordering the Storm: How to Put Together a Book of Poems, a writer’s reference book that was published by Cleveland State University Poetry Center in 2006. In 2011, Finishing Line Press published her chapbook Roughed Up by the Sun’s Mothering Tongue.  Susan Grimm teaches creative writing and poetry at the Cleveland Institute of Art.

Awards:

In 1996, Susan Grimm was awarded an Individual Artists Fellowship from the Ohio Arts Council; in 1999 she was named Ohio Poet of the Year by the Ohio Poetry Day Association;  in 2010, Grimm won the inaugural Copper Nickel Poetry Prize, and in 2011, she won the Hayden Carruth Poetry Prize.