Michelle Taransky

Michelle is a poet, fiction writer, and teacher living outside Philadelphia. She teaches creative writing and critical writing at the University of Pennsylvania, where she received the Beltran Award for Innovative Teaching and Mentoring.

Michelle is the author of the poetry books Barn Burned, Then, selected by Marjorie Welish for the Omnidawn Poetry Prize, and Sorry Was in the Woods, both published by Omnidawn. She is also the author of a poetry chapbook, Abramowitz-Goldberg (Factory Hollow Press, 2020). Her poems have appeared in The Adroit Journal, American Poetry Review, Fence, jubilat, and Huffington Post, among others.

At Penn, Michelle is a Contributing Editor for Jacket2, after serving as Reviews Editor from 2011 to 2024, and teaches Fiction and Nonfiction in the Master of Liberal Arts Program. Since 2009, she has hosted "But Company," a reading series at Kelly Writers House that pairs student writers with visiting authors. She has previously taught at the University of Iowa, Temple University, the Iowa Young Writers' Studio, the University of the Arts, and Kelly Writers House's Summer Workshop for Young Writers, and has worked as Programs Coordinator at The Poetry Center of Chicago, a research assistant at the University of Iowa International Writing Program, and Assistant to the Director at the Kelly Writers House.