Helen RuggieriHelen Ruggieri has an MFA in poetry writing from Penn State where she studied with John Balaban. She worked with the late William Stafford at the Atlantic Center for the Arts and at annual gatherings in the years following with members of the origina workshop. She taught at the University of Pittsburgh, Bradford, PA for 20 years and currently teaches a poetry workshop for the African American Center for Cultural Development in Olean, NY, and coordinates the reading series at the Olean Public Library.

Ruggieri spent a semester in Japan at Yokohama College of Commerce and published a book of her experiences--The Character for Woman (Foothills Publications). She received a Sasakawa Fellowship for the study of Japanese Culture and studied at San Diego State University. Other books are Glimmer Girls (Mayapple Press), Butterflies Under a Japanese Moon (Kitsune Books), and The Kingdom Where Everybody Signs Off Key (Aldrich Press). She has edited an anthology of writings on the Allegheny River--WRITTEN ON WATER (Mayapple Press, 2013).

Her award winning haiku have appeared in publications in Ireland, England, Russia, Belgium, Japan and elsewhere. She has produced a video of the 14th Century Buddhist nun Abutsu, a trailblazer for women of her time.

Ruggieri studied tai chi for fifteen years and has two kung fu weapons--the fan and the bo staff. She is a master gardener. Read More Read Less