Ted Morrissey

I think of myself primarily as a novelist, but I’ve long felt that my work occupies a space between prose and poetry (a stance I’ve developed in large part due to the influence of my literary idol William H. Gass). As a poet, my interest, almost exclusively, is in the sonnet, especially a free verse Petrarchan version that I’ve been working in since at least 2016. My sonnets tend to have a strong narrative pulse and thus have the feel of flash fiction (a form I’m not attracted to as a writer of prose). My earliest efforts as a poet were part of my “Laertes Sonnet Sequence,” written in apostrophe to my late father, Vince. Those sonnets appeared in such places as Bellevue Literary Review, the tiny journal, Grand Little Things, Prime Numbers Magazine, and Haunted Waters Press. Then they were published in my book Delta of Cassiopeia: Collected Stories and Sonnets (2023), which won a Maincrest Media Award and was a finalist in other competitions, including the Big Other Book Award and Global Book Award. My current poetry project is “Mary W. Shelley: A Biography in Sonnets,” which will be released in 2026. Poems from the work in progress have appeared or are forthcoming in Disturbances, The Basilisk Tree, Rockvale Review, Feminist Spaces, The Brussels Review, Disturbances, and, of course, The Poetry Lighthouse.

Retired from full-time teaching, I continue to teach creative writing and literature classes for Lindenwood University and Southern New Hampshire University. I also co-host the monthly podcast A Lesson before Writing.

Visit tedmorrissey.com and follow on Instagram @tedmorrissey.