Rate My Professor J. Allyn Rosser

J. Allyn Rosser is Professor Emerita in the English Department at Ohio University, where her scholarly focus includes creative writing, poetry, and British, Irish, and American modern fiction within the field of Literature. She earned a Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of Pennsylvania in 1991, an M.A. in English Literature and Writing from the same institution in 1988, and a B.A. in French and English from Middlebury College in 1980. Before joining Ohio University, Rosser taught in the creative writing programs at the University of Michigan, the University of Houston, and Vermont College of Fine Arts. At Ohio University, she held the position of editor of the New Ohio Review for eight years, contributing significantly to contemporary literary publishing.

Rosser is the author of four acclaimed collections of poetry: Bright Moves (Northeastern University Press, 1990), winner of the Samuel French Morse Poetry Prize selected by Charles Simic; Misery Prefigured (Southern Illinois University Press, 2001), winner of the Crab Orchard Series Open Competition; Foiled Again (Ivan R. Dee, 2007), winner of the New Criterion Poetry Prize; and Mimi’s Trapeze (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2014). Her fifth collection, Chronic Transience, was published by Unbound Edition Press in 2025. Her poems have appeared in distinguished journals including The Atlantic Monthly, Ninth Letter, and Poetry. Rosser has received prestigious fellowships and awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2010, fellowships from the Lannan Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ohio Arts Council, the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, and the Lavan Younger Poets Award from the Academy of American Poets. These honors underscore her impact in the poetry community and her contributions to creative writing and literature.