Marcie Flinchum Atkins
About the Poet
Marcie Flinchum Atkins moved to Virginia for college after growing up in SE Asia. She received her B.S in Psychology and teaching certification in K-12 from Roanoke College in 1997. She received her M.A. in Children’s Literature in 2005 and her M.F.A. in Children’s Literature in 2011, both from Hollins University, where she was the winner of Shirley Henn Memorial Award for Creative Scholarship for her poetry collection.
Marcie has spent almost three decades in Virginia public schools, first as an elementary classroom teacher and then as an elementary librarian. Marcie also co-directed and taught for the Hollinsummer Creative Writing camp for high school girls for many summers at Hollins University.
Her poetry has been published in several poetry anthologies for young readers and in several journals for adults including Consilience, Humana Obscura, and Birmingham Arts Journal. Her work was featured in the “Poetry on the Trail” at the Dahlgren Railroad Heritage Trail.
Her debut young adult novel, One Step Forward, is a historical fiction novel-in-verse set in Washington, DC and Virginia and is about the youngest suffragist to be imprisoned at Occoquan Workhouse (in Lorton, Virginia) for protesting for the right to vote. It was selected as a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection and received two starred reviews from Kirkus and School Library Journal.
Region
Northern
Virginia City or County Affiliation
Fairfax
Years of Residence in Virginia
32
Current City/State of Residence
Fairfax, VA
Gender
Female
Race/Ethnicity
White
Year of Birth
1976
Keywords/Tags
children's, women's rights, young adult
Website
Published Works or Performances
Verse Novel
One Step Forward. Versify, 2025.
Poetry Anthology Contributor
Clara's Cooky Compendium of Thimblethoughts and Wonderfuzz edited by Janet Wong and Sylvia Vardell, Pomelo Books, 2024.
What is Hope? edited by Janet Wong and Sylvia Vardell, Pomelo Books, 2023.
What is a Friend? edited by Janet Wong and Sylvia Vardell, Pomelo Books, 2022.
Things We Feel edited by Janet Wong and Sylvia Vardell, Pomelo Books, 2022.
Selected Individual Poems or Performances
“Ode to My Iridescence” published by Consilience, Issue 19 “Insects”, December 2024
“The Only Good Thing About Darkness” published in Humana Obscura, Issue 11, Winter 2024
“I Dream in Seasons” published in Birmingham Arts Journal, Volume 19, Issue 1, 2024
“What the River Knows” featured on the Dahlgren Railroad Heritage Trail in 2024-2025
“Summer’s Edge: A Monotetra” Fairfax County Library Poetic Musings Winner in Adult Rhyming Category, June 2024
Haiku published in Fractured by Cattails, HSA Anthology, 2023
Marcie Flinchum Atkins