Meet Jill
Jill Burkey’s work won the Mark Fischer Poetry Prize, the Denver Woman’s Press Club Unknown Writers’ Contest, and others. Her poems, which have been called “warm, complex, and intensely satisfying” have appeared in Deep Wild Journal, Front Range Review, Grand Valley Magazine, IMPROV Anthology of Colorado Poets, Paddlefish, Pilgrimage Magazine, Plainsongs, Sixfold, Soundings Review, The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, in downtown Grand Junction’s “Poetry in the Streets” project, and aired on KAFM 88.1 community radio. Two of her poems were included in The Untidy Season: An Anthology of Nebraska Women Poets by Backwaters Press, which received the Nebraska Book Award for anthology. The Two Hearts Inside Us is her first book. She’s busy working on more poetry as well as several creative nonfiction projects.
Jill worked several years as a writer-in-residence in the Writers in the Schools (WITS) program sponsored by Colorado Humanities and the Western Colorado Writers’ Forum, of which she is a former board member. During that time, Jill taught hundreds of elementary and high school students during nine-week residencies, each of which culminated in the production of an anthology of student work, which she edited and helped produce. Jill also helped her students publish their poems in The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, Grand Valley Magazine, and Colorado Life Magazine. Two of Jill’s students were named national finalists in the River of Words Poetry and Art Contest.
Growing up on a three-generation cattle ranch in western Nebraska only miles from the homestead where author Mari Sandoz once lived can partially account for Jill’s vivid imagination and curiosity about the past, which fuel her writing. She attended a one-room schoolhouse through fourth grade and spent many carefree afternoons riding her chestnut mare across the prairies surrounding her home. Jill also traces her roots to Grand Lake, Colorado, where her great-grandmother, with help from her great aunt and uncle, started Daven Haven Lodge in the late 1920s, a story Jill intends to write a book about.
Jill earned a BA in English and business administration with endorsements in secondary education from Nebraska Wesleyan University. She currently lives on the Western Slope of Colorado where she serves as president of her family’s business.