Biography & Contact

BIOGRAPHICAL OVERVIEW

For a condensed professional bio, click here

Caitlin Doyle is a writer, educator, librettist, and Long Island native. Her poems, essays, and reviews have appeared in The Guardian, The Atlantic, The Yale Review, The Threepenny Review, The Los Angeles Review of Books, The Irish Times, Best New Poets, and elsewhere. Caitlin’s poetry has also been featured through The Slowdown, PBS NewsHour Poetry Series, Poetry Daily, the Poetry Foundation “Poem of the Day” Series, and American Life in Poetry.

She has received prizes, scholarships, and fellowships through the Yaddo Colony, the MacDowell Colony, the Ucross Foundation, the Frost Farm, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, the Amy Award Series through Poets & Writers, the P.E.O. Scholar Foundation, and the Association of Literary Scholars, Critics, and Writers, among others. The recipient of a Pushcart Prize Special Mention, Caitlin has served as the James Merrill House Writer-In-Residence in Stonington, CT, the Jack Kerouac House Writer-In-Residence in Orlando, FL, and a Guild Hall Artist-In-Residence in East Hampton, NY.

Caitlin has taught as Visiting Assistant Professor of English and Writer-in-Residence at Washington & Jefferson College, Emerging Writer-in-Residence at Penn State Altoona, Writer-in-Residence at Interlochen Arts Academy, Elliston Fellow in Poetry at the University of Cincinnati, Lecturer in Creative Writing at Boston University, and Writer-in-Residence at St. Albans School. She earned a BA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as the Thomas Wolfe Scholar in Creative Writing, an MFA from Boston University as the George Starbuck Poetry Fellow, and a PhD from the University of Cincinnati, where she served as Associate Editor of The Cincinnati Review. Most recently, she has taught in the Frost Farm Poetry Conference, the LEDA Scholars Program (Leadership Enterprise for a Diverse America), and the Genesis Education Language Arts Mentorship Program.

Caitlin has won numerous awards for her teaching, including the University of Cincinnati Excellence in Teaching Award, the McMicken College of Arts & Sciences Teaching Award, and a William C. Boyce Teaching Award. As a librettist, she was commissioned by Grammy-nominated composer Anna Clyne to write lyrics for Silent Voices, a concert that premiered at the National Sawdust Theater featuring the Brooklyn Youth Chorus. Of recent note, Caitlin served on the Poetry Advisory Committee for the Illinois Arts Council Agency’s Artist Fellowship Program, acted as a judge for the San Antonio Writers’ Guild Poetry Contest, appeared as the Annual Spring Visiting Poet at Miss Porter’s School in Farmington, CT, and performed as a featured reader in the Newburyport Literary Festival. In her role as Interviews Editor at Literary Matters, she has conducted interviews with a range of writers, including Paul Muldoon, Carl Phillips, Don Paterson, Rita Dove, Adrian Matejka, Shane McCrae, Philip Schultz, Dana Gioia, Amit Majmudar, and Mary Jo Salter. She is currently working toward the completion of her debut poetry collection.

DETAILED BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

(including relevant links)

Education, Teaching, & Editorial Work

Caitlin earned a PhD in the Department of English and Comparative Literature as an Elliston Fellow in Poetry at the University of Cincinnati, where she taught writing and literature and served as an Associate Editor at The Cincinnati Review. She received an MFA from Boston University as the George Starbuck Fellow in Poetry, and a BA in English from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she held the Thomas Wolfe Scholarship in Creative Writing.

Caitlin received a P.E.O Scholar Award through the P.E.O. Foundation. P.E.O. Scholar Awards are granted to 100 doctoral students in the United States and Canada each year, and awardees “are chosen for their exceptional level of achievement and their potential for having a significant impact on society.” Caitlin received the additional distinction of being named the P.E.O. Presidential Endowed Scholar, an honor given through the foundation to one doctoral student in the United States and Canada every two years. According to the P.E.O. Foundation, endowed awards are “reserved for our finest scholars.”

To read an article in The Key Reporter about Caitlin’s selection as the P.E.O. Presidential Endowed Scholar, which includes an interview with her and details her endeavors as a poet, critic, teacher, editor, and librettist, you can click here

Caitlin graduated from the University of Cincinnati as the recipient of the Presidential Medal of Graduate Student Excellence, an honor granted each year to two doctoral students from among every department in the university “who best exemplify scholarship, leadership, character, service, and the ideas of the University of Cincinnati.”

To read an article in the University of Cincinnati News titled “Doctoral Student’s Leadership Skills are Pure Poetry,” which centers on Caitlin’s selection for the Presidential Medal of Graduate Student Excellence Award, you can click here

Caitlin has been awarded a variety of teaching honors, including the University of Cincinnati Excellence in Teaching Award. Caitlin was chosen for this distinction from a pool of doctoral instructor nominees among every college at the university. She has also been granted the College of Arts & Sciences Excellence in Teaching Award, given to “one outstanding doctoral student teaching assistant each year for achievements in the classroom.” In addition, Caitlin received a William C. Boyce Award for Outstanding Teaching.

To read an article in the University of Cincinnati News about Caitlin’s selection for the Excellence in Teaching Award, you can click here
To read the Commendation Letter Caitlin received as the recipient of the William C. Boyce Award for Outstanding Teaching, you can click here

At the 2019 Frost Farm Poetry Conference in Derry, NH, along with fellow instructors Rhina Espaillat, Bruce Bennett, Bill Coyle, Alfred Nicol, and Midge Goldberg, Caitlin taught a workshop of her own design titled “Break it to Make it: Varying Form in Meaningful Ways,” with the following course description:

“We’ll spend our time together exploring how and why poets create expressive variations when working with formal tools such as rhyme and meter. Examples include the way a poet might vary the meter at a strategic moment or break an established structural element in order to mirror a poem’s content. We’ll also examine what happens when form and content pull against each other to create complex dissonances that increase a poem’s range of potential implications. The class is geared toward writers at all levels of experience. Our main goal is to have fun with language as we think about how poets generate productive tension and build multilayered poems through the making and breaking of patterns on the page.”

Most recently, Caitlin has taught as Visiting Assistant Professor of English and Writer-In-Residence at Washington & Jefferson College in Washington, PA. She has also taught as the Writer-In-Residence at St. Albans School in Washington, DC, a Lecturer in Creative Writing at Boston University, the Emerging Writer-In-Residence at Penn State Altoona, the Writer-In-Residence at Interlochen Arts Academy in Interlochen, MI, and an Elliston Fellow in Poetry at the University of Cincinnati.

To read an article in The East Hampton Star about Caitlin’s selection as the Interlochen Arts Academy Writer-In-Residence, you can click here
To read a news piece about Caitlin in W&J News, which was published during her time as Visiting Assistant Professor of English and Writer-In-Residence at Washington & Jefferson College, you can click here
To listen to a podcast interview with Caitlin through the Ellison Library Series about her experience as the Writer-In-Residence at St. Albans School, you can click here

Caitlin has taught workshops, led poetry assemblies, and worked with creative writing students through endowed visiting writer posts at secondary schools and universities around the country, including the University of Central Florida in Orlando, FL, Miss Porter’s School in Farmington, CT, George School in Newtown, PA, Trinity Preparatory School in Winter Park, FL, and Western Reserve Academy in Hudson, OH.

Publications & Projects

Caitlin Doyle’s poems have appeared in The Yale Review, The Atlantic, The Guardian Poetry Column, The Irish Times, The PBS NewsHour Poetry Series, American Life in Poetry, The New Criterion, Boston Review, The Threepenny Review, Black Warrior Review, The Poetry Foundation’s “Poem of the Day” Series, The Poetry Sunday Column, Zócalo Public Square, and Poetry Daily, along with numerous other journals, magazines, and publication venues.

Her poetry and prose have also appeared or are forthcoming in several anthologies, including The Best Emerging Poets of 2013 (Sullivan & Stokes), The Southern Poetry Anthology (Texas Review Press), Best New Poets (University of Virginia Press), The Golden Shovel Anthology (University of Arkansas Press), American Creative Writers on Class (Big Wonderful Press), The Crafty Poet: A Portable Workshop (Wind Publications), Bared: An Anthology (Les Femmes Folles Books), A Constellation of Kisses (Terrapin Books), So Little Time (Green Writers Press), The Best of the Raintown Review (Barefoot Muse Press), Writers Among Us (St. Albans Press), and Vanguard: Exercises for the Creative Writing Classroom (RAIDER Publishing)

In addition, her essays, reviews, and interviews with writers have appeared or are forthcoming in a variety of publications, including The Los Angeles Review of Books, The Dark Horse, The Angle, 32 Poems Online, Blackbird, The Common, The Cork Literary Review, MidAmerica, and Literary Matters.

Caitlin was commissioned by Grammy-nominated composer Anna Clyne to write lyrics for Silent Voices, a program featuring the nationally acclaimed Brooklyn Youth Chorus. The concert, titled Silent Voices: If You Listen, took place at the National Sawdust Theatre in Brooklyn, NY. Other lyricists for If You Listen included Jane Hirshfield, Brenda Shaughnessy, Safiya Sinclair, and Toshi Reagon.

For information about the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, you can click here
To learn more about composer Anna Clyne, you can check out a profile of her in The New York Times by clicking here
To read an overview of Body Compass, the choral work on which Caitlin and Anna collaborated, you can click here

Awards, Fellowships, & Grants

Caitlin has received the Presidential Endowed Scholar Award through the P.E.O Foundation, the Frost Farm Poetry Prize, the Amy Award in Poetry through Poets & Writers, a Pushcart Prize Special Mention, the Meringoff Nonfiction Prize through the Association of Literary Scholars, Critics, and Writers, the University of Cincinnati Presidential Medal of Graduate Student Excellence, the WC&C Scholarship in Poetry through the Association of Writers and Writing Programs, a Tennessee Williams Scholarship in Poetry through the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, the Margaret Bridgman Scholarship in Poetry through the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, an Individual Artist Grant through the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, an Artist Grant through the Elizabeth George Foundation, and a Taft Foundation Research Fellowship.

She has also received prizes and fellowships through the Academy of American Poets, the Atlantic Monthly Student Writing Contest, the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts, the John Anson Kittredge Fund, and others.

Residency Fellowships

Caitlin has been awarded residency fellowships in poetry from the Yaddo Corporation, the MacDowell Colony, the Ucross Foundation, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Jentel Foundation, the Edward F. Albee Foundation, the Ledig House International Writers Residency, and others. She has held Writer-In-Residence fellowship positions through the James Merrill House in Stonington, CT, the Jack Kerouac House in Orlando, FL, and the Guild Hall Artist-In-Residence Program in East Hampton, NY. She received the Roland Scholarship as an Associate Artist at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in New Smyrna Beach, FL, and she was awarded the Vermont Studio Center ALSCW Fellowship.

Profiles, Interviews, & Media Coverage

Articles, profiles, reviews, and essays pertaining to Caitlin’s work have appeared in The Guardian Poetry Column, The Critical Flame, The Irish Echo, Boston University Today, The New York Sun, The Key Reporter, The University of Cincinnati Arts & Sciences News, The Irish Examiner, The East Hampton Star, Stay Thirsty, Gwarlingo, The East Hampton Press, W&J News, Dan’s Papers, and others.

Interviews with Caitlin about her work have appeared in several publications and other media venues, including Words With Writers, The Primal School, The National Young Arts Foundation, The Identity Theory Emerging Poet Series, The National Writers Series, The Thomas Wolfe Review, Functionally Literate Radio, The Drunken Odyssey Podcast Series, The Ellison Library Podcast Series, and Around Cincinnati (91.7 WVXU).

See News & Highlights and Media Coverage for links to the material mentioned here.

Readings & Events: Highlights, 2010-present

Caitlin appeared as a featured reader in the Powow River Poets Reading Series in 2025. To learn more about the Powow River Poets Reading Series, you can click here

Caitlin appeared as a featured reader at the Newburyport Literary Festival in 2022. To learn more about the festival and the participating writers, you can click here.

As a Guild Hall Artist-In-Residence in East Hampton, NY, Caitlin gave a poetry reading at Canio’s Books in Sag Habor, NY.

As the Presidential Endowed Scholar through the P.E.O Foundation, Caitlin was a keynote speaker at the P.E.O Convention in Columbus, OH.

To learn about her special distinction as the P.E.O Presidential Endowed Scholar, you can visit the Boston University Creative Writing site by clicking here

Caitlin read as the featured poet at the inaugural Irish American Writers and Artists Event at the Irish Heritage Center of Greater Cincinnati.

To learn more about the Irish Heritage Center of Greater Cincinnati, you can click here
To learn more about the Irish American Writers and Artists Organization, which has chapters all over the country, you can click here

As the winner of the Frost Farm Poetry Prize, Caitlin appeared as the featured reader at The Hyla Brook Reading Series at the Robert Frost Farm in Derry, NH. The reading kicked off the Frost Farm Poetry Conference.

To learn more about Caitlin’s selection for the Frost Farm Poetry Prize and read the judge’s full commentary, you can click here
To read an article titled “Caitlin Doyle: Following in Robert Frost’s Footsteps” in Bostonia about Caitlin’s receipt of the Frost Farm Poetry Prize, you can click here

Caitlin has read her work at a variety of live and online venues. She has given Writer-In-Residence readings at the James Merrill House in Stonington, CT, the Jack Kerouac House in Orlando, FL, St. Albans School in Washington, DC, Interlochen Arts Academy in Interlochen, MI, and Penn State Altoona in Altoona, PA.

Caitlin’s work has been featured through the PBS NewsHour Poetry Series. To hear a recording of her reading her poem “A Brief History of the Bikini,” you can click here

Caitlin’s work has been featured as the “Poem of the Day” at the Poetry Foundation. To hear a recording of her reading her poem “The Editor’s Ex,” you can click here

Each year, a graduate of the Boston University MFA Program in Poetry and/or Fiction receives an invitation to read with the Creative Writing faculty in the Boston University Faculty Reading. Caitlin was invited to read as the Featured Poetry Alumna.

To learn more about the Boston University Faculty Reading and Caitlin’s participation, you can read an article in BU Today titled “BU’s Literary Lions Read Tonight” by clicking here

As part of the Best New Poets reading series, Caitlin has read at several places around New York City, including Housing Works, Book Court, and McNally Jackson Books.

Other New York City venues at which Caitlin has given readings include the following: The New York Society Library (where she read as one of the winners of the Amy Award through Poets & Writers), the Powerhouse Arena (where she read as a contributor to the anthology American Creative Writers on Class), the Roger Smith Hotel (where she read as one of two emerging poets chosen to represent New York State in Stanza: Scotland’s Poetry Festival), and KGB Bar (where she read along with fellow residents from Art Omi)

Caitlin appeared as one of two featured poets, along with Frank Messina, at the inaugural Kerouac Project Open Mic Event at the Gallery at Avalon Island. Caitlin and Frank read their work while accompanied by celebrated jazz pianist Per Danielsson. The event, hosted by Kerouac House board member Naomi Butterfield, also included an open mic segment.

You can read about the event by clicking here, and you can also find a more detailed announcement in Scribbles: The Heartbeat of the Florida Writing Lifestyle by clicking here

Caitlin read with poet Annemarie Ni Churreain for the Literature Out Loud Series at the Maitland Art Museum. They presented their work as part of the museum’s “CulturePop” event, which included the opening of two new art exhibitions by Cicero Greathouse and Leigh Tarantino.

To see an announcement about the reading in Scribbles: The Heartbeat of the Florida Writing Lifestyle, you can click here

For information about Caitlin’s upcoming readings and other literary events, you can click here

For links to a variety of media (podcasts, radio interviews, and videos) featuring Caitlin reading and discussing her work, you can visit News & Highlights and Media Coverage