Jan Minich

Jan Minich was born in Youngstown, Ohio, and grew up near fields, ponds, and lakes in Poland, Huron, and Lisbon, Ohio. He received a BA in Literature and Writing from the University of Arizona, an MFA in Poetry from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and a PhD in English from the University of Utah with specialties in poetry writing and Western American Literature, before moving to Carbon County and teaching full-time at USU Eastern/CEU, where he also co-hosted a long-running Readers’ Series, was Director of the Wilderness Studies Program, and where he is now an Emeritus Professor. Other colleges where Jan taught include Youngstown State University and Columbia College. Always drawn to water and the outdoors, Jan cruises Lake Superior in the summers in a small boat, and in winter hikes Utah’s canyons. His poetry comes from his relationship with wild areas, many times focusing on deep concerns for natural environments. Other poems channel the voices of women, mainly historical characters, including female pirates, a burlesque dancer, mermaids, and western women who left their homes and traveled through Utah with outlaws, in his latest collection of poetry Wild Roses. His books include The Letters of Silver Dollar, Wild Roses (a chapbook), and History of a Drowning. His work has been published in many journals including Cutbank, Weber, Kestrel, Blueline, The Cape Rock, Stone Country, Seattle Review, Clover, Sugarhouse Review, Verse Wisconsin, Limberlost Review, Deep Wild, and New Poets of the American West. Jan lives in Wellington, Utah, with his wife, poet Nancy Takacs, and their two dogs. Nancy and Jan have a son, Ian.