Michael Paul Thomas

Michael is a gate-opener, in all dimensions" ~Jane Hirshfield, Poet

Michael Paul Thomas has been teaching creative writing in public schools and at the university level for 30 years. A graduate of Hamilton College and Syracuse University’s prestigious MFA program, Michael has worked as the founding editor of Salt Hill Literary magazine, as a literature professor, and also as a consultant for public school teachers in teaching writing practices throughout upstate New York and the metropolitan area. Building upon his experience in literature seminars on EM Forster, DH Lawrence, Jane Austen, and James Baldwin, and while teaching at Monmouth University, Michael has designed writing curricula and taught over a thousand students from all majors across campus. Over the last 7 years, he has mentored and coached more than two dozen graduate creative writing students for fiction, creative non-fiction and poetry thesis manuscripts. During his 15 years as Associate Dean, Michael wrote, edited, and presented hundreds of introductory speeches to a multitude of groups on campus, for the academic and surrounding, public communities. As Director of Monmouth’s Center for the Arts Visiting Writers Series, Michael hosted, interviewed and facilitated workshops with major American and international writers including, Joyce Carol Oates, Marlon James, Amitav Ghosh, Caryl Philips, Hanif Abdurraqib, Nick Flynn, Robert Pinsky, Natasha Tretheway and Mary Karr.

A recipient of the Raymond Carver Prize in Poetry and a NJ State Council on the Arts Fellowship, his poems have been published recently in Reel Verse: Poems about the Movies (Knopf), 5AM, Slice Magazine, The Greensboro Review, Connotation Press, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Great River Review, Hotel Amerika, Columbia Poetry Review, and Navigation 2 Nowhere. His research and teaching of the Confessional poets inspired an essay, “American Poetry and the Art of Confession: Dylan, Lowell & Bishop” accepted at the first “World of Bob Dylan Symposium” held in 2019 in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Most recently, while pursuing his Life Coaching Certification with Lumia Coaching, Michael has been creating workshops that combine his expertise in poetry with coaching practices.