Sharon M. Van Sluijs
B. 1956
Sharon Mariel Van Sluijs was born into a first generation Dutch immigrant family in eastern Wisconsin. The first of five children, she rebelled early against the Calvinist Dutch Reformed Church and developed an avid interest in reading, writing, and painting. Van Sluijs studied English, Spanish, and French at Beloit College, then graduated in English and French from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She earned an MFA from the University of Iowa, where she studied with Gerald Stern, Eleanor Wilner, and Jorie Graham. In 1991 Van Sluijs was awarded the Amy Lowell Poetry Travelling Scholarship, which allowed her to finish her first poetry collection, Under the Influence of Blackbirds (1993).
Van Sluijs has taught poetry, fiction, and literature at universities in University of Wisconsin-Madison, Washburn University, and SUNY-Oswego. An active member of Mind’s Eye Radio Collective in Madison, Wisconsin, Sharon has recorded many essays with embedded poems for that radio program, available to radio stations via Pacifica and to individuals through radio4all. She teaches in Wisconsin.
Van Sluijs has taught poetry, fiction, and literature at universities in University of Wisconsin-Madison, Washburn University, and SUNY-Oswego. An active member of Mind’s Eye Radio Collective in Madison, Wisconsin, Sharon has recorded many essays with embedded poems for that radio program, available to radio stations via Pacifica and to individuals through radio4all. She teaches in Wisconsin.