Virginia Gilbert

Gilbert served as a Peace Corps Volunteer from 1971-73 in the Republic of South Korea, and served as a judge, among others, for Peace Corps Poetry Contests and for Alabama State Council on the Arts grants. Afterwards, she worked at the Academy of American Poets setting up its free workshops called "The Writers's Community" and its library. Gilbert then taught English in Iran and was evacuated from that country during the 1978-79 Islamic Revolution. The movie, "Argo," greatly mirrored her own evacuation experiences in Iran. She also travelled through Afghanistan just before the 1978 Communist overthrow of the Afghani government. Selected readings: Four AWP Conferences, four South Atlantic Modern Language Association Conferences; three Southern Festival of Books; Emerald Coast Writers' Conference; Chicago Harold Washington Main Library; The Barbican Library, London, England; Writer in Resident at Lakenheath American Middle School, Ely, England; Peace Corps Conferences; Shakespear and Co., Paris, France; Motlow College Writers' Festival; Twentieth Century Literature Conference; Poetry Society of America's Midwest Regional Conference; Alabama Public Television; Midwest Modern Language Association Conference; others. Dr. Virginia Gilbert has a Ph.D. in Creative Writing-Poetry and English from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, a MFA in Creative Writing-Poetry from the Iowa Writers Workshop, and a B. A. in English from Iowa Wesleyan University. A number of her haikus have been selected for Split This Rock's favorite "Postcards to the President" and have been posted on their blog. Gilbert was a consultant for a book on Alabama Poet Laureates, and was an advisor for the fine arts magazine, The American Muse. Besides being a poet, Gilbert is also a noted photographer, having won a number of local, national and international awards including a Special Merit Award--Kodak International Newspaper Snapshot Award for 1986 and "The Best Nebraska Entrant" in the Seventh Annual Cornhusker International Exhibition of Photography. She has won five Best Pictures of the Year Awards from the Huntsville Photographic Society and is ranked as one of its Master Photographers. Currently, Gilbert is Professor Emerita of English and Creative Writing at Alabama A & M University, and was its long time Director of its Program in Creative Writing and its reading series. She is also a former President of the Huntsville, Alabama, Photographic Society and is a former President of the Huntsville branch of The National League of American Pen Women. She is a recent Members Assembly Secretary to the Arts Council of Huntsville, Alabama. In 2017, Gilbert was a finalist for the Virginia Hammill Simms Award for volunteer support for the arts in Huntsville.