SARA RIES DZIEKONSKI

Sara Ries Dziekonski (Sara Ries), a Buffalo native, holds an MFA in poetry from Chatham University, where she received the Best Thesis in Poetry Award. Her first book, Come In, We're Open, which she wrote about growing up in her parents’ diner, won the Stevens Poetry Manuscript Competition and was published in June 2010 by the NFSPS Press. Her poem, “Fish Fry Daughter,” was selected by Ted Kooser for his American Life in Poetry column. Ries Dziekonski taught composition and literature at Erie Community College before teaching for SENA in Colombia. Her chapbooks include Snow Angels on the Living Room Floor (Finishing Line Press 2018) and Marrying Maracuyá (Main Street Rag 2021), which won the Cathy Smith Bowers Chapbook Competition. Her poems have appeared in Slipstream, Cordella Magazine, Punt Volat, Creative Pinellas, The Buffalo News, Blue Collar Review, LABOR: Studies in Working-Class History of the Americas, Words Without Walls: Writers on Addiction, Violence, and Incarceration, and Earth’s Daughters, among others. She lives with her husband, son, and cat and works for Keep St. Pete Lit as an editor and creative writing teacher.