ABOUT AMY PENCE

Author Amy Pence’s work spans poetry, hybrid, fiction, interviews, and essays. Red Hen Press released her debut novel, Yellow, in Spring 2026. Nominated for a Pushcart Prize, We Travel Towards It, released by Serving House Books in Spring 2025, explores both loss and the necessary resilience and insight needed in the face of climate change-induced natural disasters. Amy donated a portion of her launch's ticket sales to Hurricane Helene survivors.

In 2019, Amy launched her chapbook, Your Posthumous Dress: Remnants from the Alexander McQueen Collection (dancing girl press), with a unique fashion/art reading that supported a national nonprofit dedicated to reversing the addiction crisis.

Her hybrid book, [It] Incandescent (Ninebark Press, 2018), winner of the Eyelands International Poetry Award in Athens, Greece, blends fiction, poetry, and scholarship.

Her full-length poetry collections also include Pulitzer-prize nominated Armor, Amour (Ninebark, 2012) and The Decadent Lovely (Main Street Rag, 2010).

Poets & Writers has published her interviews with Paul Guest, Barbara Kingsolver and Li-Young Lee as well as profiles of Storyknife Writers Retreat, late poet Joshua Vinzant, and the Tucson writing scene. The Writer's Chronicle published her essays on the shifting perspectives of Emily Dickinson, the impact of Dickinson & Whitman as well as an interview with poet Jane Hirshfield. Her interviews with Brenda Hillman and Cecilia Woloch have appeared in other magazines.

Amy received her B.A. from Denison University and her M.F.A. from University of Arizona. She’s taught composition and poetry for many years, including at Emory University, and continues to tutor students in Atlanta.

Photo by Ada Montgomery
@adaluisaphotography