Cecilia Woloch

Cecilia Woloch is a poet, writer, teacher, and performer. She was born in Pennsylvania and raised in rural Kentucky.

Woloch has published poetry collections, chapbooks, and a novel, as well as essays and reviews. Tsigan: The Gypsy Poem (Cahuenga Press, 2002), her second poetry collection, was published in French translation as Tzigane, le poème, Gitan by Scribe-l’Harmattan in 2014, and was issued in an expanded and updated English edition by Two Sylvias Press in 2018. The final poem in the latest edition is featured in a commemorative exhibit by the architect and artist Daniel Libeskind at Auschwitz-Birkenau. The text of Tsigan: The Gypsy Poem has also been the basis for multilingual, multimedia performances across the U.S. and Europe.

Woloch’s poetry has been included in the Best American Poetry Series and in numerous anthologies, such as Die Morgendämmerung der Worte: Moderner Poesie-Atlas der Roma und Sinti [The Dawn of the Words: Modern Poetry Atlas of the Roma and Sinti] (Die Andere Bibliothek, 2018). In addition to French and German, her work has been published in translation in Bulgarian, Hungarian, Polish, Romanian, and Ukrainian.

Woloch’s honors include fellowships from the Fulbright Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, CEC/ArtsLink International, and the Center for International Theatre Development. She has also received a Pushcart Prize.

Woloch has conducted poetry workshops for thousands of children and young people throughout the United States, as well as workshops for professional writers, educators, participants in Elderhostel programs for senior citizens, incarcerated people, and residents at a shelter for homeless women and their children. She is the founding director of Summer Poetry in Idyllwild, the Istanbul Poetry Workshop, and the Paris Poetry Workshop. She has also served on the creative writing faculties of the University of Southern California, Georgia College & State University, Western Connecticut State University, and New England College. Most recently, she has taught in the summer program at Sichuan University in China in 2019 and taught on a Fulbright Fellowship at the University of Rzeszów in Poland in 2020.

Woloch is based in Los Angeles.