Writers in Real Life: Jessica Gregg

Jessica Gregg is the Yellow Arrow writer-in-residence for the Highlandtown First Friday Art Walk during the months of July, August and September. Jessica grew up in the Baltimore area, listening to her family’s stories of the city’s street car days. She and her children lived in Bozeman, Montana, before returning to Baltimore more than a decade ago.

Most of her career since then has been spent in education, and much of her poetry has been informed by the time she spent working at Sisters Academy of Baltimore, a middle school for girls from Southwest Baltimore. Three years ago, she left education and returned to her first career, journalism, and currently oversees three magazines, one of which is Baltimore Style.

In the fall of 2017, she decided to take a prose poetry class through Johns Hopkins University’s Odyssey program as a way to keep writing after spending work days editing. After the class, she entered a contest for women poets that was sponsored by Finishing Line Press. She did not win the contest, but the press chose to publish her manuscript News from This Lonesome City, which will be released this summer.

Poetry is Jessica’s way of documenting the moments and stories in life that are most meaningful to her. It’s also a chance to play with words in a way that the day job doesn’t always provide.

Jessica hopes to use her residency to work on a new collection of poems and to teach a workshop or two for the community.

Jessica will be giving a reading in addition to a book signing at Literary Night on August 2nd. Find her circulating the art walk in July, August and September.