Laura Van Prooyen
Biography
Photo by Jessica Tampas
Having been raised in a tight-knit Dutch community just outside of Chicago, Laura Van Prooyen now lives in Central Texas. She has more than 10 years experience teaching poetry and writing in a variety of academic settings including: Dominican University, Chicago Public Schools, Del Valle High School (TX), and the University of Illinois at Chicago. Additionally, Van Prooyen has worked as a volunteer with incarcerated youth at the Cook County Juvenile Detention Center in Chicago.
The author of Inkblot and Altar (Pecan Grove Press 2006), Van Prooyen's second collection of poems, Resist, was named a finalist for the 2011 Lexi Rudnitsky/Editor's Choice Award (Persea Books). Recent work is forthcoming in The American Poetry Review, Boston Review, and the tenth anniversary anthology: Best of 32 Poems. A recipient of grants from the American Association of University Women and the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, she also has been awarded a Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg prize for her creative work. Van Prooyen earned an M.F.A. in Poetry at Warren Wilson College, and she lives in San Antonio.
