Grace Cavalieri

Personal life

Cavalieri lives in Annapolis, Maryland. She has four grown daughters: Cynthia, Colleen, Shelley and Angela; and four grandchildren: Rachel, Elizabeth, Sean and Joseph. Her husband, sculptor Kenneth Flynn, died January 15, 2013, days before his 83rd birthday.

Literary career

Cavalieri has published 16 books and chapbooks of poetry, plus fiction. She has written 26 produced plays, and texts for 2 produced operas. She co-founded the Washington Writers Publishing House with John McNally in 1976 and served on its editorial board from 1976 to 1982. In addition, in 1979 she founded The Bunny and the Crocodile Press/Forest Woods Media Productions, Inc., a publishing house and media production company. As of 2014, she still operates the small press which is actively publishing. She has lectured and taught throughout the United States at several colleges and universities, and was, for 25 years, visiting poet at St. Mary's College of Maryland. She was resident writer at the Word Works annual retreat in Tuscany, 1996-2003. She was book editor of The Montserrat Review until 2011. She is poetry columnist for MiPOradio and on the staff of MiPOesias. She writes a monthly poetry feature entitled “Exemplars” for the Washington Independent Review of Books (2011–present).

Literary awards

Cavalieri has received numerous literary awards. Highlights include:

She has enjoyed several state arts and humanities council awards and fellowships. She received the inaugural Columbia Award from the Folger Shakespeare Library Poetry Committee for "significant contribution to poetry."

Education

Radio career

Cavalieri has had a long-term connection with public radio and public radio programming. Cavalieri and a core staff founded the non-commercial radio station WPFW-FM after being awarded a 3-year National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Radio Development Grant in 1976. Cavalieri worked for the station as Director of Arts Programming from 1976 to 1978, and as a radio producer from 1976 to 1985. She has produced more than 100 programs in radio drama, and poetry and arts criticism including "Poetry from the City," "Expressions," and "Writer's Workshop on the Air.".

Cavalieri worked as a radio broadcaster at WPFW-FM from 1977 to 1997, and is best known in the Washington literary community for her program "The Poet and the Poem." The show aired weekly from 1977 to 1997, and was distributed nationally through the Pacifica Radio station network, which includes KPFA-FM/KPFB-FM Berkeley, California, KPFK-FM North Hollywood, California, KPFT-FM Houston, Texas, and WBAI-FM New York City, New York. Cavalieri stopped airing "The Poet and the Poem" through WPFW-FM in 1997, and she now presents this series to public radio from the Library of Congress via NPR satellite. Approximately ten episodes from the Library of Congress series are produced each season, and podcasts are made available through the Library of Congress. Typically, "The Poet and the Poem" features poets who live in the Washington, D.C. area and have become a part of the Washington literary community. Cavalieri has been committed to presenting various American cultural traditions on the program, and is particularly interested in the black literary community. The recordings of her programs include a significant collection of African-American poets.

In addition, she was an Associate Director of Programming at the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) for five years and subsequently served as program officer of the National Endowment for the Humanities media program from 1982 to 1988.