Sally Ashton is a writer, teacher and editor. Now, she can add
another title to her growing breadth of accomplishments: poet
laureate.
Sally Ashton is a writer, teacher and editor. Now she can add another title to her growing breadth of accomplishments: poet laureate.
The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday appointed Ashton to the honorary post of poet laureate for the county, according to a news release.
Her appointment comes after an application and review process organized by the County and Arts Council Silicon Valley.
“What an honor to be given this opportunity,” Ashton said via the news release. “As Poet Laureate, I look forward to building on the success of Santa Clara County’s first poet laureate, Nils Peterson, to work with the community of local poets and also to engage people who may lack an appreciation of poetry’s significance to life in Silicon Valley today. I’m excited to be working to promote poetry as a part of our lives in Santa Clara County.”
Ashton is scheduled to take the two-year post April 1, the first day of National Poetry Month. Peterson was appointed March 24, 2009 to a two-year term that expires March 31.
Ashton is the editor of the DMQ Review, an online journal featuring poetry and art. She produced and directed the first California Poets Festival for Poetry Center San Jose at History Park in 2006. Ashton teaches creative writing and composition at her alma mater, San Jose State University, as well as through a variety of workshops. She is the recipient of an Artist Fellowship, Poetry from Arts Council Silicon Valley, according to the news release.
