Off the Yoga Mat

Cheryl J. Fish grew up in Flushing, NY. She is a poet, fiction writer, and environmental justice scholar. Her recent books of poetry include CRATER & TOWER, on trauma and ecology after the Mount St. Helens volcanic eruption and the terrorist attack of 9/11/01, and THE SAUNA IS FULL OF MAIDS, poems and photographs celebrating Finnish sauna culture, the natural world, and friendships. Her poems have appeared in journals and anthologies, including Poetics-for-the-More-than-Human- World, New American Writing, Newtown Literary, Terrain.org, Reed, and Hanging Loose. Her short fiction has been published in Iron Horse Literary Review, CheapPop, Spank the Carp, and Liar's League. OFF THE YOGA MAT, her debut novel about three characters turning 40 as the year 2000 (Y2K) approaches, will be published in 2022 by Livingston Press. Fish's essays on films and photography by Sami artists challenging mining and extraction have appeared in the books Arctic Cinemas; Nordic Narratives of Nature and the Environment; and Critical Norths: Space, Nature, Theory. She is the author of two books and essays on African-American travel writing, June Jordan's environmental justice poetics, and women's travel literature. Fish has been a Fulbright professor in Finland and visiting professor at Mt. Holyoke College; she teaches at BMCC/City University of New York, and is a docent lecturer in the Dept. of Cultures at University of Helsinki.