Brief Curriculum Vitae Loretta K. Collins, Ph.D. Full Professor University of Puerto Rico College of Humanities Department of English Ph.D. Department of English, The University of Iowa, 1999; Dissertation: “Trouble It: Rebel and Revel Urban Soundspaces in the Caribbean Diaspora.” Director: Dr. Mary Lou Emery. M.F.A. English-Creative Writing, Poetry. Writers’ Workshop, The University of Iowa, 1992. Thesis: “All the Bedtime Stories My Women Tell.” Thesis director: Professor Gerald Stern. M.A. English-Creative Writing, Poetry, California State University, Fresno, 1990. President’s Medalist. Dean’s Medal. Thesis: “The Mother’s Song.” Thesis director: Professor Philip Levine. B.A. in English, Summa cum Laude, California State University, Fresno, PROFESSIONAL HISTORY: 1999 to present, rank Full Professor, Department of English, College of Humanities, University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus; served for four years as departmental director and one year as Associate Academic Dean of the College of Humanities. UNDERGRADUATE COURSES TAUGHT INCLUDE: Aging, the End-of-Life Experience, and Death in Literature and Film; Disability Studies and the Humanities; Literature and the Healing Arts: A Cross-cultural Perspective; Topics in Medical Humanities and Health, Literature and Cinema (taught twice as a course on Bioethics and taught once as a course on Cultural Competence and Disparities in the Healthcare Context); Literature and Ecology; Themes in Literature and Film: Reading, Viewing and Writing SciFi and the Fabulist Tale; The Caribbean Experience; Poetry Writing; Fiction Writing; Introduction to Creative Writing; The Immigrant Experience; Reading and Writing the Screenplay; Literature, Orality and Performance; American Literature Survey; Contemporary British Literature Survey; Caribbean Women Writers; African American Literature; Twentieth Century Poetry. MASTER’S LEVEL COURSES TAUGHT INCLUDE: Caribbean Poetry and Drama; Caribbean Literature, Language and Culture; Caribbean Narrative. DOCTORAL COURSES TAUGHT INCLUDE: Caribbean Poetry; Black British Literature and Cultural Studies; Caribbean-Canadian Literature and Culture; Caribbean Women Fiction Writers; Caribbean Children’s and Young Adult Literature; Caribbean Film; The Caribbean Visual Imagination in Literature, Film and Art; Latino and Caribbean Sci Fi and Fabulist Tales in Literature and Film. Caribbean Literature and Popular Music (to be taught Spring 2019). HONORS AND AWARDS: Loretta Collins Klobah and María Grau, editors and translators. 2018 PEN Translates Award (Britain). Announced July 7, 2018. The Sea Needs No Ornament, bilingual anthology of poetry by Caribbean women writers, to be published by Peepal Tree Press, Autumn 2019; National Endowment for the Humanities faculty development grant, 2012-2013 ($100,0000) for the creation of an undergraduate minor degree in Medical Humanities and Health at the University of Puerto Rico (minor degree approved in August 2017); Nomination of Dr. Modesto Cepeda for the 2017 National Heritage Fellowship (National Endowment for the Arts). (Successful). Award announced in June 2017. Cepeda was awarded $25,000 in recognition for his lifetime achievement as a Master Artist of Bomba and Plena. FIPI funds from the University of Puerto Rico (2001); Recipient of Rockefeller Humanities Fellowship (1999); Recipient of Fulbright Graduate Fellowship (1997-1998); Various literary awards, including the Earl Lyon Award for Poetry, from The Academy of American Poets, the Pushcart Prize, the Pam Wallace Award for an Aspiring Writer; the 2012 OCM Bocas Award for Caribbean Literature in the category of poetry; shortlisted for the first book award in the Forward Art Foundation Literary Prize series; 2018 British Poetry Book Society Summer Recommendation (for second poetry collection); Poetry collection Ricantations selected to be celebrated on National Poetry Day, October 4th, 2018, Britain. RECENT INVITATIONS (2012 to present): Invited to be on the International Advisory Board of the journal BIM: Arts for the 21st Century. (Caribbean literary and visual arts journal of Barbados); Outside reviewer for the Postcolonial Studies journal Il Tolomeo (Italy). Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Dipartimento di Studi Linguistici e Culturali Comparati; Invited writer at the 2018 Miami Book Fair; Juror for the 2018 OCM Bocas Award for Caribbean Literature, in the area of poetry; Invited poet at The New School (NY); Invited writer at the reading for Best American Poetry 2016 at the New School; Calabash Lit Fest in Jamaica; St. Martin Book Fair; Bim Lit Fest in Barbados; NCG Bocas Lit Fest in T&T; El Jardín Borda in Cuernavaca; Poetry is Busy series in Puerto Rico; and many other local reading series in Puerto Rico. Mentor for poetry writing workshop at the North Coast Writing Retreat in the island of Trinidad; Guest editor of newspaper articles about the North Coast Writing retreat, published in the Trinidad and Tobago Guardian. My poems were included in the exhibition “Fifty-Fifty” (a critical response to an art exhibition of Wendy Nanan), curator Dr. Marsha Pearce, at Medulla Art Gallery, Trinidad; Judge for the Puerto Rican state championship of Poetry Out Loud, sponsored by the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña and the NEA. RECENT CONFERENCES AND PRESENTATIONS (2017-2018): Collins Klobah, Loretta. “Conflictos Bioéticos en el Futuro Humano.” Multidisciplinary Faculty Panel Session: four professors discuss the Future, Bioethics, AI, Synthetic Biology, Neuroscience and the Natural Environment. JGD Anfiteatro 123. UPR, RP. November 28, 2018. 5:30-8:30. National Neuroscience Student Association. Project co-managers David Ojeda, Adriana Padilla and Mónica Hernández. Collins Klobah,. Loretta“Communicating in English in the Context of Grant Proposal Writing.” Post-Doctoral Master is Sciences in Clinical and Translational Research Program. School of Health Professions and School of Medicine. Friday, October 12, 2018. 11:30-1:00 p.m., Room 310, Nursing Building, UPR-Recinto de Ciencias Médicas. Collins Klobah, Loretta. “Ricantations: Book Talk and Recital.” November 8, 2018. 11:30 a.m.-1:00 p.m. Organized by the English Department Professional Improvement Committee. Universidad de Puerto Rico, Recinto de Bayamón. Salas 1 & 2, Audiovisual, CRA. Collins Klobah, Loretta. “After Irma and Maria: Caribbean Women Writing the Storms.” Panel session of commentary and literary readings by Edwidge Danticat (Haiti), Tiphanie Yanique (U.S. Virgin Islands) and Loretta Collins Klobah (Puerto Rico). Miami Book Fair. ReadCaribbean Series. November 17th, 2018. 11:30 a.m.-1:00 p.m. Miami Dade Community College. Building 8, third floor. Collins Klobah, Loretta. “ReadCaribbean Presents Three Groundbreaking Poets: Rajiv Mohabir, Ruth Bethar and Loretta Collins Klobah.” Miami Book Fair. November 18th, 2018. 1:30 p.m.-3:00 p.m. Miami Dade Community College. Building 6, first floor. Collins Klobah, Loretta and Vahni Capildeo. Sunday Launch. A poetry doubleheader as two new books – Ricantations by 2012 OCM Bocas poetry prizewinner Loretta Collins Klobah and Venus as a Bear by TT’s own Forward Prizewinner Vahni Capildeo – make their world debuts, with guest readings by Andre Bagoo, Simone Leid, Brandon O’Brien, and Shivanee Ramlochan. OCM Bocas Lit Fest. Trinidad and Tobago. April 29, 2018. Collins Klobah, Loretta and Elidio la Torre Lagares and Sasha Pimentel. The Sun Sets Pineapple. Poetry reading. August 1, 2018. Libros AC. San Juan, Puerto Rico. Collins Klobah, Loretta and Danielle Legros Georges, et al. “Crossing Tonguas.” Writers and translators Adalber Salas Hernández of Venezuela, Loretta Collins Klobah of Puerto Rico, Haitian-American Danielle Legros Georges, and Vahni Capildeo of TT/UK on how and why writing crosses borders of language, and how translation feeds their sense of themselves as citizens of a global literature. OCM Bocas Lit Fest. Trinidad and Tobago. April 29, 2018. Invited Guest Speaker at the ACURIL Conference: “Multidisciplinary Research in the Caribbean” (Academic Libraries and Special Libraries and Information Technologies Special Interest Group). My paper was titled “Humanities and the Healing Arts: Puerto Rico and the Caribbean.” Session title: “Research in Caribbean Ecology, Architecture and Health.” Date: June 7, 2017. Time: 2:30- 3:30. Place: Condado Plaza Hilton Hotel. Attended the NorthAmeriCon ‘17: The 2017 North American Science Fiction Convention. July 6-9, 2017. Sheraton Puerto Rico Hotel and Casino, San Juan. CREATIVE PUBLICATIONS: Poetry collection Ricantations (Leeds: Peepal Tree Press, 2018) has been named a Summer Recommendation by the British Poetry Book Society. Debut poetry collection The Twelve-Foot Neon Woman (Leeds: Peepal Tree Press, 2011) received the 2012 OCM Bocas Prize in Caribbean Literature in the category of poetry and was short listed for the 2012 Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection in the Forward poetry prizes. Poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Best American Poetry 2016, Vox Populi Sphere, BIM, Caribbean Beat Magazine, The Caribbean Writer, The Caribbean Review of Books, Poui: The Cave Hill Literary Annual, Susumba’s Book Bag, Moko: Caribbean Arts and Letters, WomanSpeak, PN Review, Smartish Pace, Past Simple, Ekphrastic Review, A Congeries of Poetry at Connotation Press: An Online Artifact, Live Encounters, TriQuarterly Review, Quarterly West, Black Warrior Review, The Missouri Review, The Antioch Review, Cimarron Review and Poet Lore. Poems have also been anthologized in The Forward Book of Poetry 2013, How Much Earth,