DR. RAVI SHANKAR is a Pushcart prize-winning poet, translator and professor who has published 15 books, including the Muse India award-winning translations Andal: The Autobiography of a Goddess and The Many Uses of Mint: New and Selected Poems 1997-2017. Along with Tina Chang and Nathalie Handal, he co-edited W.W. Norton's Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia & Beyond called "a beautiful achievement for world literature" by Nobel Laureate Nadine Gordimer. He has taught and performed around the world and appeared in print, radio and TV in such venues as The New York Times, NPR, BBC and the PBS Newshour. He has won awards to the Corporation of Yaddo and the MacDowell Colony, fellowships from the Rhode Island and Connecticut Counsel on the Arts, founded one of the oldest electronic journals of the arts Drunken Boat, is Chairman of the Asia Pacific Writers & Translators (APWT) and recently finished his PhD from the University of Sydney. His memoir “Correctional” was published in 2021 with University of Wisconsin Press and he teaches creative writing at Tufts University. 

Website: http://www.poetravishankar.com

Twitter Username: @empurpler

Publications

• Correctional , University of Wisconsin Press (January 4, 2022)
• The Golden Shovel: New Poems Honoring Gwendolyn Brooks , University of Arkansas Press (April 15, 2018)
• The Many Uses of Mint: New and Selected Poems 1998-2018 , Recent Works Press (September 2, 2019)
• Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from Asia, the Middle East and Beyond , W.W. Norton & Co. (September 1, 2008)
• Andal: The Autobiography of a Goddess , Zubaan Books / University of Chicago Press (February 1, 2017)

Awards

• Pushcart Prize(2011)
• National Poetry Review Prize(2010)
• Connecticut Commission on Culture & Tourism Artist Fellowship(2009)
• Finalist Connecticut Book Awards(2005)

Employment

• Faculty at City University of Hong Kong (September 2010 - 2017)
• Professor of English at Central Connecticut State University (September 2002 - September 2014)
• Executive Dirctor at Drunken Boat (January 1999 - )
• Chairman at Connecticut Young Writers Trust (January 2010 - May 2015)
• Lecturer at Tufts University (September 2021 - )
• Faculty and Board Member at New York Writers Workshop (January 2015 - )

Degrees

• Bachelor of Arts in Modern Studies (English) from University of Virginia (May 1996)
• Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing (Poetry) from Columbia University (May 2000)
• Doctoral Degree in Media and Communications from University of Sydney (January 2020)

Genres of Interest

Fiction, Creative nonfiction, Poetry