Jason Y Koo

Jason Koo is a second-generation Korean American poet, educator, editor and nonprofit director. He is an associate teaching professor of English at Quinnipiac, where he has won an Innovation Incubator Grant and an Innovations in Course Delivery Grant and twice been recognized as a semifinalist for the Center for Excellence in Teaching Award. He specializes in teaching poetry and creative writing, especially by underrepresented writers. Koo is the author of three full-length collections of poetry: More Than Mere Light, America's Favorite Poem, and Man on Extremely Small Island, winner of the De Novo Poetry Prize and the Asian American Writers' Workshop Members' Choice Award for the best Asian American book of 2009. He is also the author of the chapbook Sunset Park and coeditor of the Brooklyn Poets Anthology. His work has been published or is forthcoming in the American Scholar, Best American Poetry, Missouri Review, Poetry Northwest, Village Voice and Yale Review, among other places, and won fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Vermont Studio Center and New York State Writers Institute. Koo earned his BA in English with Distinction from Yale, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa and Cum Laude; his MFA in creative writing from the University of Houston, where he was a Stella L. Erhardt Memorial Scholar; and his PhD in English and creative writing from the University of Missouri–Columbia, where he was a D. R. Francis Fellow. Named one of the "100 Most Influential People in Brooklyn Culture" by Brooklyn Magazine, Koo is the founder and executive director of the nonprofit Brooklyn Poets and creator of the Bridge, the world's premier poetry network connecting poets and mentors. He is represented by Ina Peterson of Inner Voice Artists.