Date: Jun 16, 2009

Gayl Teller, Hofstra Faculty Member and Plainview Resident, Named Nassau County Poet Laureate, 2009 to 2011, by the Nassau County Poet Laureate Selection Committee

Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY … Hofstra University Adjunct Associate Professor Gayl Teller has been named Nassau County Poet Laureate, 2009-2011, by the Nassau County Poet Laureate Selection Committee. Professor Teller currently teaches in Hofstra’s Department of Writing Studies and Composition and has been on the Hofstra faculty since 1985.

Professor Teller, a resident of Planview, Long Island, was honored in a special ceremony by the Committee on June 13, 2009, at 2 p.m. at the Farmingdale Public Library.

Professor Teller received an M.A. from Columbia University and another M.A. from Queens College, CUNY. Her poetry collections are At the Intersection of Everything You Have Ever Loved, Shorehaven, Moving Day and One Small Kindness - a finalist for the Blue Light Poetry Prize. Her most recent poetry book, Inside the Embrace, was selected in national competition to be published by WordTech/Cherry Grove.

She is director and founder of the Poetry Reading Series, under the auspices of the New York State Council on the Arts at the Mid-Island Y JCC for the past 14 years. Her work has received the Edgar Allen Poe Prize, the Peninsula Library Poetry Prize, a National Federation of State Poetry Societies Prize, a National League of American PEN Women Prize and The Connecticut Writer Prize.

Professor Teller’s poems are widely published and anthologized, and her reviews of poetry books have appeared frequently in Small Press Review.

Hofstra University is a dynamic private institution where students can choose from about 150 undergraduate and more than 160 graduate programs in liberal arts and sciences, business; engineering; communication; education, health and human services;  and honors studies, as well as a School of Law. With a student-faculty ratio of 14-to-1, our professors teach small classes averaging 22 students that emphasize interaction, critical thinking and analysis. Hofstra offers a faculty whose highest priority is teaching excellence. The University also provides excellent facilities with state-of-the-art technology, extensive library resources and internship programs that match students’ interests and abilities with appropriate companies and organizations.  The Hofstra community is driven, dynamic and energetic, helping students find and focus their strengths to prepare them for a successful future.

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Related Link: Department of Writing Studies and Composition