Josh Kalscheur

Born and raised in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, Josh Kalscheur attended Saint Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, where he originally wanted to play baseball and follow in his father’s footsteps by working toward becoming a gym teacher. However, his path changed quickly when he fell in love with poetry during a two-year Great Books program. After he graduated, instead of pursuing graduate school, Josh taught for two years at Xavier High School in Chuuk, Micronesia, as a part of Jesuit Volunteers International. His experiences there became the geographical and cultural setting for Josh’s MFA thesis, Tidal, which he wrote while completing his graduate work at UW-Madison. Tidal would later become his first book of poetry, which he published in 2015 with Four Way Books. A recipient of fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference as well as the Wisconsin Institute of Creative Writing, his poems have appeared widely, including in Slate, Boston Review, FENCE, and The Nation.

An experienced teacher, Kalscheur has taught English and Creative Writing at SUNY-Fredonia, Oak Hill Penitentiary, Madison College, Northwestern University’s Center for Talent Development, and now at UW-Madison as a lecturer in the English Department. A co-curator of the well-regarded poetry reading series Monsters of Poetry, Josh has also taught community poetry workshops at Arts and Literature Laboratory, a literary non-profit organization. He and his partner Katie live in Madison, Wisconsin, with their dog, Truffles.