Katherine Wills, Ph.D. is the Director, of the IUPUC English Program, Associate Professor of English and a former Indiana Poet Laureate. She was the featured poet on Thursday, May 2, 2016 at Brick Street Poetry in Zionsville, Ind.
Students in the English program at IUPUC benefit from Dr. Wills training and interests in composition and rhetoric. She thoughtfully integrates multimodal writing and technology in her teaching and research.
This published author shares, “Writing is no longer limited to linear alphanumeric books and flat texts. Rather, effective rhetorical writing entails a postmodern pastiche of technological and cultural applications such as graphics, song lyrics, creative writing, technical graphics, cultural studies, interactive linkages, social networking, blogs, videos, and more.” She examines how these multimodal forms are incorporated into writing in business communication, technical documents, composition, and cross-disciplinary texts.
Karen Kovacik is a professor of English at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis. She says of Katerina Tsiopos’ (Katerina Tsiopos’ is Dr. Wills pen name) poetry: “’I occupy this dense language,’ Tsiopos writes in one poem. ‘No one can stop me.’ Her poetry then goes on to illustrate all the ways that poets--and women--can be stopped, especially by violence so intimate it stifles. But in the end, this poet, like her Greek ancestors, assembles her world out of musk and ash, sulfur and oolong, the sharpness of leeks and the sweetness of Persian walnuts. Katerina proves that what we call ideas can best be summoned through cologne and pollen, satin and sweat.”
Tsiopos has published in ART/LIFE, Bathtub Gin, Poetry Motel Wallpaper, River Styx, the Otherwise Room Anthology, and others. Romanian poet Lilliana Ursu translated her poetry into Romanian for the Romanian National Public Radio Romania Broadcast.
In 2011, she published Our Slow Migration North, Finishing Line Press. She received two grants towards the publication of her book: the first grant was from Indiana University-Purdue University School of Liberal Arts; the second grant was from the Columbus Area Arts Council (Area 9). Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She has read her work in over 100 national and international venues.
Joyce Brinkman hosts creative writing on location at venues such as the Indianapolis Zoo and the Indianapolis Artsgarden. The Bee Line collaborative poem. Tsiopos is a contributing poet in the Bee Line poem below display at the ArtsGarden in Indianapolis. She also supports the Steampunk immersion weekend and NUVO Cultural Vision Awards.
Recently, Tsiopos was invented as a featured poet to read at the Poetry on Brick Street Featured Poet Series. Brick Street Poetry is a nonprofit organization that builds avenues of poetry brick by brick by providing opportunities to connect and share individual experiences through poetry. It is sponsored in part by the Indiana Arts Council.
Brick Street Poetry publishes the literary magazine Brick Street, conducts public readings on “Brick Street” and elsewhere, produce world class poetry events and projects, and connects poets worldwide. Members include Joyce Brinkman, Dan Carpenter, Susan Miller, and others.