Neli Moody is a writer and a lecturer at San Jose State University, where she received her M.F.A. in
Creative Writing. She was born in Cincinnati, Ohio and has been writing poems since she was nine years
old. As a bi-racial child growing up during turbulent times, she saw in nature a refuge. She aims for a
painterly specificity of color and musicality. The poems must sing.
Insatiably curious, Neli has studied, among many subjects, literature, music, art history, architecture,
Latin, French and Italian, ethnic folklore and dance, geology and religion. She plays the piano, violin, and
guitar, has appeared onstage acting, singing, and dancing, and has been involved in professional theatre
for 32 years in many capacities.
Neli won the San Jose State faculty-nominated Dorrit Sibley Award for outstanding creative achievement
in 2005, and the Marjorie McLaughlin Folendorf award for outstanding achievement in creative writing in
2006. She was honored three times with the James Phelan Award for poetry, in 1987, 2004 and 2005. In
2005, she also won the Academy of American Poets’ Virginia Araujo Award. Her work has appeared in
Reed, Brick and Mortar Review, Appalachian Times and Konch Magazine. She presented a paper at the "T.S.
Eliot, Dante and the European Tradition: An International Symposium in January, 2008" on Renaissance art
and Modern Poetry "A Syntax of Stones: Pre-Text, Edifice, and the Sacred Space in Richard Burns’
'Avebury'" will be published by Salt Publications in the UK as part of its Companion text to Richard's work
in 2010.
Neli has read her poetry throughout the San Francisco Bay and Santa Cruz areas. In experiences gained
from world travel, sailing and scuba diving, spelunking and rock climbing, flying and skiing, are the seeds
of her poems. She is a resident of the Central Coast, where she is currently writing her fifth collection of
poetry as she edits three others. Favorite pastimes include gourmet cooking, Polynesian dancing, art
history and music. Current interesting reads: Home by Marilynne Robinson, The Enchantress of Florence by
Salman Rushdie, anything by Dylan Thomas or Derek Walcott. There are so many wonderful poems to re-
read and discover. I return to ones like "Love Calls Us to the Things of This World" by Richard Wilbur
again and again. I gravitate towards the Southern poets, the Caribbean, and the Irish poets.
Creative Writing. She was born in Cincinnati, Ohio and has been writing poems since she was nine years
old. As a bi-racial child growing up during turbulent times, she saw in nature a refuge. She aims for a
painterly specificity of color and musicality. The poems must sing.
Insatiably curious, Neli has studied, among many subjects, literature, music, art history, architecture,
Latin, French and Italian, ethnic folklore and dance, geology and religion. She plays the piano, violin, and
guitar, has appeared onstage acting, singing, and dancing, and has been involved in professional theatre
for 32 years in many capacities.
Neli won the San Jose State faculty-nominated Dorrit Sibley Award for outstanding creative achievement
in 2005, and the Marjorie McLaughlin Folendorf award for outstanding achievement in creative writing in
2006. She was honored three times with the James Phelan Award for poetry, in 1987, 2004 and 2005. In
2005, she also won the Academy of American Poets’ Virginia Araujo Award. Her work has appeared in
Reed, Brick and Mortar Review, Appalachian Times and Konch Magazine. She presented a paper at the "T.S.
Eliot, Dante and the European Tradition: An International Symposium in January, 2008" on Renaissance art
and Modern Poetry "A Syntax of Stones: Pre-Text, Edifice, and the Sacred Space in Richard Burns’
'Avebury'" will be published by Salt Publications in the UK as part of its Companion text to Richard's work
in 2010.
Neli has read her poetry throughout the San Francisco Bay and Santa Cruz areas. In experiences gained
from world travel, sailing and scuba diving, spelunking and rock climbing, flying and skiing, are the seeds
of her poems. She is a resident of the Central Coast, where she is currently writing her fifth collection of
poetry as she edits three others. Favorite pastimes include gourmet cooking, Polynesian dancing, art
history and music. Current interesting reads: Home by Marilynne Robinson, The Enchantress of Florence by
Salman Rushdie, anything by Dylan Thomas or Derek Walcott. There are so many wonderful poems to re-
read and discover. I return to ones like "Love Calls Us to the Things of This World" by Richard Wilbur
again and again. I gravitate towards the Southern poets, the Caribbean, and the Irish poets.
| All rights reserved. |
 | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  |
| atalantacreative |
| Links Poetry Santa Cruz San Jose State University Bookshop Santa Cruz Ishmael Reed Publishing adirondackreview.homestead.com |
| Neli Moody Frasier Island, Australia |
