Tami Haaland's Page

My collection of poetry, Breath in Every Room, won the Nicholas Roerich First Book Prize, and my work has recently been featured on the Writer's Almanac, in High Desert Journal and 5 AM, and in the anthologies, Letters to the World, Montana Women Writers, and Poems Across the Big Sky. New work is forthcoming this fall in The Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion and The Mom Egg.

Originally from the Montana highline where my grandparents homesteaded in the early 20th century, I attended the University of Montana and received a B.A. and M.A. in English. Some years later, I received an MFA in Literature and Creative Writing from Bennington College. I'm an associate professor of English at Montana State University Billings. I also teach periodically at the Montana Women's Prison and offer occasional writing workshops at Rim Country Land Institute and local schools. I'm a member of the Yellowstone Writer's Collective, and I assist in setting up readings and workshops in the Billings community.

Over the years, I've been involved in a number of collaborative efforts. In 2003, Ian Elliot created a poetry performance of my work featuring local musicians, actors, and dancers, and including a series of paintings by the late Jo Rainbolt. More recently, dancer Betsy Harris and I performed in Dave Caserio's Feast for the Hunger Moon in 2008 and 2009. For the past two years, students in my poetry class have collaborated with Dennis Kern's art students to create posters and animations, some of which you can view here.

During the past year, novelist Russell Rowland and I founded Stone's Throw Magazine, an online quarterly featuring poetry, fiction, nonfiction and art. In addition, I serve on the advisory board for Aerie International.

Stone's Throw Magazine   photo credit: "Summer" by Jean Albus

	Breath in Every Room available at Amazon and Powell's Books
	LETTERS TO THE WORLD: Poems from the Wom-po Listserv available at Amazon
	Montana Women Writers: A Geography of the Heart available at Amazon and Powell's Books

I also offer a talk on Montana's Historical Poets through the Humanities Montana Speakers Bureau:

The 1920s and 30s were particularly rich years for Montana poetry, but many of the poets from this period are forgotten or have become remote in our collective memory. Some, like J. V. Cunningham, who spent his formative years in the eastern part of the state, have never been recognized among Montana's poets. Discover and explore the lives and writings of the more obscure poets who lived and wrote in Montana in the early twentieth century.

If you're interested in having me speak at your organization, or want more information about my talk, please contact me at 657-2948 or by email at thaaland@msubillings.edu.