Gianna Russo is Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing. She teaches in both the undergraduate and graduate creative writing programs and serves as editor-in-chief of Sandhill Review. She is the founding director of the Sandhill Writers Retreat. She was appointed the inaugural Poet-in-Residence for the College of Arts and Sciences, 2019-22.
Ms. Russo is the author of the poetry collections, One House Down (Madville Publishing, 2019); Moonflower, winner of the Florida Book Award Bronze and Florida Publishers Association Silver awards; and two chapbooks, Blue Slumber and The Companion of Joy.
A Pushcart Prize nominee, she has had publications in Green Mountains Review, Negative Capability, Crab Orchard Review, Apalachee Review, The Sun, Poet Lore, Valparaiso, saw palm, The MacGuffin, Water Stone, Florida Review, Tampa Review, Ekphrasis, Florida Humanities Council Forum, Karamu, The Bloomsbury Review, and Calyx, among others. Her essays have appeared in the (former) Saint Petersburg Times. Ms. Russo is founding editor of YellowJacket Press. She was named Creative Loafing’s Best of the Bay Local Poet in 2017.
