Helen Ruggieri has an MFA in poetry writing from Penn State where she studied with John Balaban. She worked with the late William Stafford at the Atlantic Center for the Arts and at annual gatherings in the years following with members of the original workshop. She taught at the University of Pittsburgh, Bradford, PA for 20 years.
Her new book – Camping in the Galaxy – is available now from Woodthrush Books or from Amazon.com
Ruggieri spent a semester in Japan at Yokohama College of Commerce and published a book of her experiences – The Character for Woman (Foothills Publications). She received a Sasakawa Fellowship for the study of Japanese Culture and at San Diego State University. Other books are Glimmer Girls (Mayapple Press), Butterflies Under a Japanese Moon (Kitsune Books), and The Kingdom Where Everybody Sings Off Key (Aldrich Press), and The Kingdom Where No One Keeps Time (Mayapple Press). She has edited an anthology of writings on the Allegheny River – Written on Water. Her award-winning haiku have appeared in publications in Ireland, England, Russia, Belgium, Japan and elsewhere.
She has produced a video of the 14th Century Buddhist nun, Abutsu, a trailblazer for women of her time. Ruggieri studied tai chi for fifteen years and has two kung fu weapons – the fan and the bo staff. She is a master gardener.