Amabel Kylee Síorghlas meditates and dances in a log cabin on a dirt road deep in the forested hills of Vermont. For many years she shared her passion for literature and writing as a secondary middle school and high school English teacher. Currently, when she is not helping other people write books as a developmental editor through her business Word Artisan VT, she blogs and writes poetry and fiction. She has an MFA in poetry from VCFA (UI&U) and an MA in fiction from UNH. Her poetry has appeared in the anthologies Writers and Artists Do Sleep (Red Claw Press), Wild Things (Outrider Press), and Our Last Walk: Using Poetry for Grieving and Remembering Our Pets (University Professors Press). Another great joy is writing and playing music as a guitarist and vocalist, most recently in an bluegrass-old time band, Two Cents in the Till, and in the past, alternative original art-rock bands. In her free time, Amabel likes to find a “favorite spot” and, like the peaceful bull in Munroe Leaf’s The Story of Ferdinand, “sit in the shade all day and smell the flowers.”

Vermont College of Fine Arts, Montpelier, VT
MFA in Writing–Poetry, June 2007

University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH
Teacher Certification Program, Education, May 1995
MA, English–Fiction Writing, May 1994
BA, English, Cum Laude, May 1985

There’s always a ladder to where you’d like to go.

Being Young
Small town, general store, licorice laces and fireballs.
Frog races at the summer fair.
Ponies and rambles down old forest roads.
A little diary with a golden key.
Nancy Drew: Mystery at Shadow Ranch; Charlotte’s Web
Sharp Ticonderoga pencils, pages and lines.
Faeries, scribbled poems, dream-life.
Ice skating on the pasture pond to Steely Dan.
Thrift store fashion, purple spiky hair.
Independence, rebellion, rock bands.
Irish castles, Scottish heather; tropical flowers, desert thorns.
Many travels, little time.

There is art wherever you look.

Staying Young
Melodic notes and lyrics dropping down
from mountains & white clouds.
“Glowy time.” All the stars.
Disco dance therapy in winter’s long, dark months…
Stacks of books yet to be read.
Naps under woolen blankets.
Writing it all down, reflecting.
Colored pencil sketches of wildflowers.
A sleek black cat napping in the sun’s last rays.
Long conversations with good friends.
Watching butterflies on dandelions in the morning.

Listening to river stones talk.

Glowy time.