Diane Tomczak’s haiku, senryu, and haibun have been published in numerous poetry magazines including Frogpond, Mayfly, and Modern Haiku. She has won awards in the Haiku Society of America’s Harold Henderson and Gerald Brady Memorial contests, and her work has been included in the Red Moon Anthology which “each year assembles the finest haiku published around the world in a single volume.”
Diane has been awarded the cover of Mayfly magazine and, in addition to appearing in many Haiku Society of America anthologies, her work has been included in a series of charitable publications (Barking Mad, Rattled, Hog Wild, Bull Headed, Rip-Roaring). She is currently compiling a collection of her published poetry for an upcoming book, All-Night Diner.
Other freelance work has included newspaper and magazine articles as well as motivational classroom activities for the National Council of Teachers of English. Diane is a former junior high and college English instructor.
About the Author
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I grew up in the small town of Pinconning, Michigan, where my fellow baby boomer neighbors and I played from early morning until the street lights came on at night. We had nothing but our imaginations to keep us occupied and the freedom to explore wherever our bikes could take us. It was a delicious childhood filled with creativity, adventure, and days filled with possibilities.
My parents had instilled a love of nature in my two older brothers and me. Sunday afternoons were spent hiking the same wooded trails that my father and his siblings had once memorized as kids. Every walk through the woods gave us gifts … deer and rabbits crossing our path, huckleberry bushes offering bent branches heavy with sweetness, wildflowers like jack-in-the-pulpit sharing their secrets, and the fresh scent of pine trees enveloping everything. All these riches were free and ours to examine and marvel at any time. How could I not eventually be drawn to haiku which focuses on the singular wondrous moments found in nature? Seemingly simple, yet profound moments. Nature themes appear in most of what I write, including my first picture book, Good Friends Stick Together.
Gallery
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