The 2025 Massachusetts Poetry Festival

Ann E. Wallace, PhD is Poet Laureate Emeritus of Jersey City, New Jersey. As a long-time survivor of ovarian cancer, a woman with multiple sclerosis, and one of the nation's first Long Covid patients, she has lived and written through illness for more than thirty years. She has published and made media appearances regarding COVID for Huffington Post, USA Today, Good Morning, America, NPR, and elsewhere. Her collection Days of Grace and Silence: A Chronicle of COVID’s Long Haul (Kelsay Books, 2024) was written over three years, beginning when Wallace was first sick with severe acute COVID and following her long journey of recovery. Wallace’s first collection Counting by Sevens was published by Main Street Rag. Wallace is co-host and co-producer of The WildStory: A Podcast of Poetry and Plants by the Native Plant Society of New Jersey and Professor of English at New Jersey City University.