Connie Wasem Scott
My favorite places to be include any mountain forest for the hiking and serenity and the Marmot Art Space in Spokane, taking in paintings by Melissa Cole, Shelli Walters, Ric Gendron. I’ve lived in 3 cities in the US, all in the West, and they all inform my poems. My parents hailed from North Dakota, and spending many happy summers there with our families made NDak a 4th home for me. I was born in Greeley, CO, to a family of four who camped in summers in the Rockies and sledded and skied in winters. My brother Chuck was my close companion growing up and a lifelong friend when we became adults. When I was 12, my family moved to El Paso, TX, and the move jarred me into writing, first as self-focused wailing preteen , then as a young romantic who wrote terribly abstract poems. Much later, in college, I took a Contemporary American Poetry class, and that was my bona fide initiation to the artform. I came to love El Paso and its arid landscape, endless sky, blended cultures. I earned a BA in Literature and an MA in Professional Writing and Rhetoric from UTEP, where I became a member of the faculty, teaching a variety of composition, English education, and creative writing courses for 16 years. In time, I sought a tenured position so I could provide my then-preK daughter Makenna a stable home life. That led me to Spokane, WA, in 2001, and I’ve been teaching at Spokane Falls Community College ever since. I spend as much time as I can in the outdoors, camping, hiking, kayaking and canoeing with my Aussie-American husband Alexander, and with my daughter, Makenna, the beacon of my life.
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