Neil Shepard (b. 1951) grew up in Leominster, Massachusetts, where a billboard on the highway advertised it as the Pioneer Plastic City. Shepard escaped that toxic environment and moved to Vermont, where he earned his B.A at the University of Vermont. Later, he earned his M.A. in Creative Writing at Colorado State University, and his Ph.D. at Ohio University. His most recent books of poetry are an offbeat chapbook, Vermont Exit Ramps (Big Table Publishing, 2012), and a full-length collection, (T)ravel/Un(t)ravel (Mid-List Press, 2011); his three earlier collections are This Far from the Source (2006), I'm Here Because I Lost My Way (1998), and Scavenging the Country for a Heartbeat (1993), all from Mid-List. His poems have appeared in numerous literary magazines, including Boulevard, Harvard Review, New England Review, Paris Review, and Southern Review. Shepard is Senior Editor of Green Mountains Review and a founding member of the poetry-jazz ensemble PoJazz. He also founded the Writers Program at the Vermont Studio Center and directed it for eight years. Retired from a long-time teaching career in the BFA writing program at Johnson State College in Vermont, he now teaches in the low-residency MFA Writing Program at Wilkes University and lives in New York City and Vermont.Read more about this authorRead less about this author