Biography

Phyllis Stowell was born in La Cross, Wisconsin and raised in Aurora, Illinois. She studied two years at Oberlin College and earned her BA from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She has an MA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State (University) and a PhD in Poetry and Depth Psychology from the Union Institute and University. She is the widow of Jungian analyst Julius C. Travis, MD. She has two children and three grandchildren, and lives in Berkeley, California. She is Professor Emerita from Saint Mary’s College and Founding Member of the SMC Master of Fine Arts. She is the former Chair of the Friends Of the Institute (C.G. Jung Institute, San Francisco).

Her publications include over 180 poems in a wide range of reviews from traditional to experimental, such as Poetry East, American Poetry Review, The Virginia Quarterly, Wallace Stevens Review, Columbia, Epoch, Phoebe, 13th Moon, Volt and The Jung Journal. Two long poems, “Amnesiac” and “Sequence and Consequence” were published in Psychological Perspectives.

Her residencies include: Hedgebrook Farm, Djerassi, MacDowell Colony, Camargo Foundation (Cassis, France) ,Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and CAMAC, Centre d’Art (Marnay-sur-seine, France) where she worked on SHIELD with her daughter, artist Pacia Sallomi.

House of Intervals, a manuscript, a finalist for the Poetry Society of America’s Alice Fay Di Castagnola Award; “Farewell Lament,” a series of 10 poems, placed second for the Poetry Society of America’s Robert H. Winner Award, 1997 and a set of five poems “Considering The Damage That Happens” won the 1998 International Quarterly Poetry Prize.

The Spoon River Poetry Review, Summer/Fall, 2006: featured Illinois poet, interview with five poems.