Seizing the Opportunity: Dr. Cheryl Caesar becomes an Opportunity Arts Affiliate.

Dr. Cheryl Caesar is a professor of writing at Michigan State University who makes and performs poetry, sings, and makes art with charcoal, watercolor, acrylics and collage. Born in Ann Arbor, Cheryl later lived in Lansing, Riverside CA, Paris, Tuscany and Sligo (Republic of Ireland). She has performed at poetry readings at MICA Gallery, Urban Beat, Acoustic Coffeehouse, Grand Ledge District Library, Okemos District Library, Wednesday Night Poets, East Lansing Art Festival, Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature, Michigan College English Association, Windwalker Gallery, Voices of Michigan Poets, The Artists' Umbrella, The Poetry Room, Serendipity Bookstore in Chelsea, The Ballsians, Skazat!, The Crafted Bean, Nuyorican Poets Café, Reo Town Readings, The Social Gap. She has also facilitated poetry workshops for the Lansing Poetry Club.

Cheryl was the winner of the third prize in Singapore Unbound international poetry contest; honorable mention in Poetry Super Highway. The winner of the "All-age" scholarship to Social Justice Week Writing workshop at Fine Arts Work Center in Providence, Massachusetts which was awarded by Indolent Books. She studied comparative literature (English, American, French and Russian) at the Sorbonne, where she earned her doctorate. Cheryl has given readings with Ruelaine Stokes, Mary Anna Scenga Kruch, Marylinda Fox, Melinda Pope, & Margaret Krusinga. Cheryl began drawing and painting more intensively during the shutdown. Her visual artwork has now appeared in the anthology Words Across the Water (including on the cover) and the literary magazine After the Pause.

Cheryl comes from a talented family of writers. Her father and her paternal grandmother were both professional writers. Her father wrote fiction and nonfiction about American history and natural history, and her grandmother wrote "women's fiction." Cheryl has published poetry in the U.S., Germany, India, Bangladesh, Yemen and Zimbabwe. She contributed to local anthologies The Social Gap, Buzz Zine and Rejoice Everyone! A Reo Town Reading Anthology. She is a board member of the Lansing Poetry Club and is co-editing, with President Ruelaine Stokes, an anthology on the theme of the Lansing poetry scene in the "old days" (anywhere from the seventies to the early aughts.) Cheryl and her work have been featured in the City Pulse. Reviews of her chapbook Flatman have appeared in The Blue Nib, The Poetry Café, Panoply and The Mark Literary Review. She has been interviewed as Poet of the Month on Poetry in the Bar.

For More Information on Cheryl & her work visit:
http://caesarc.msu.domains/