Award-winning writer, teacher
and scholar

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Madeline's newest book Signs: Savannah to Key West (Zea Books, 2022) documents an 800-mile, 13-day bicycle ride in 2018-2019. It starts fifty miles outside Savannah, Georgia, and follows the Atlantic coastline to Key West, Florida. The trip culminates in Niceville to visit a grandparent, a military veteran and an engineer born in 1924. A bicycle carries a rider through place. The voices of family carry us back and forth through time. The best journeys end with welcome visits with friends, family, and stories, those memories that hold us together, the signs that we belong. 

Madeline's recent books include Great River Legs (Zea Books, 2021) and Safety Measures (Zea Books, 2021), both on long-distance bicycle rides. Great River Legs was a book developed while earning a second M.A. that she earned from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in Integrated Media Communications. Safety Measures was Madeline's professional project that was awarded a Hitchcock Fellowship.

Madeline's book of poetry What a Bicycle Can Carry (BlazeVOX [books], 2018) documents a 4,280-mile cross-country journey by bicycle of found objects. It includes the award-winning poem "Epicenter," selected for the Canada Poetry Contest #1, Wax Poetry and Art /Canada Poetry Magazine, 2018.

Madeline's collection of creative nonfiction A Bicycle’s Echo (Red Dashboard, 2018) includes “Finding the Gap on Dead Man's Run” selected as a Finalist in the 41st New Millennium Writings 2016 Literary Awards for Nonfiction and “Seven Cities of Good” which was the Honorable Mention in the 2016 Pacifica Literary Review Creative Nonfiction Contest. This collection brings together bicycling and a love for dogs.

Bared: Contemporary Poetry and Art on Bras and Breasts, an anthology that Madeline edited, collects the work of 170 contemporary women poets and artists. The work resists given narratives about the body and fashion by boldly presenting alternatives in written and visual art.

Awards, Finalists, & Honors

Madeline’s book Drink (BlazeVOX [books], 2015) won the 2016 Independent Publisher Bronze Book Award (IPPY Award). Madeline’s book Velocipede (Stephen F. Austin State University Press, 2016) is a 2016 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award Finalist for Sports. It includes the award-winning “Roadside Kiddie Pool,” which won the 2015 Beecher’s Award in Poetry.

Madeline’s collaborative chapbook with Andrea Blythe, Every Girl Becomes the Wolf (Finishing Line Press, 2018) is the 3rd Place Chapbook Award Winner for the 2019 Elgin Awards.

Madeline’s collaborated on two books with artist Sally Deskins. Leaves of Absence: An Illustrated Guide to Common Garden Affection (Red Dashboard, 2016) is an illustration Honor Book for the 2017 Nebraska Book Award and Intimates and Fools is a cover/design/illustration Honor Book for the 2015 Nebraska Book Award.

The anthology Madeline edited, Women Write Resistance: Poets Resist Gender Violence (Hyacinth Girl Press, 2013) made the Nebraska 150 Book List for the Nebraska 150 Celebration.

Publications

Madeline’s poetry has appeared in Prairie Schooner, Sports Literate, Comstock Review, Women’s Studies Quarterly, and the anthology The 2019 Rhysling Anthology (Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association). Her poem, “Working on Worth,” is a Special Merit Winner in Comstock Review's 2018 Muriel Craft Bailey Poetry Contest, judged by Maggie Smith.

Newest Collections

Signs: Savannah to Key West from Zea Books is prose and poetry about how a bicycle carries a rider through place.

Great River Legs from Zea Books mixes prose poetry, creative nonfiction, and found poetry that follows a bicycle ride along rivers.

Safety Measures from Zea Books is a creative nonfiction book that documents a solo cross-country bicycle adventure.

Diversions from Dancing Girl Press is a chapbook of found poetry from books, film, and news.

Yoga Birds from Zea Books is a kid's book of yoga published under Madeline's children's literature pen name.

Journey to Nowhere from Finishing Line Press is a collection of poetry that traces a path of yoga.