Alan S. Bridges began writing haiku in 2008 after meeting poet John Stevenson, Managing Editor of The Heron’s Nest, on a cross-America train trip. Subsequently Alan was included in A New Resonance 7: Emerging Voices in English-Language Haiku, published by Red Moon Press.

In 2017 Alan won the Robert Spiess Memorial Haiku Competition, sponsored by Modern Haiku and was voted Poet of the Year (for 2016) by the readers of The Heron’s Nest, and was a winner of the Snapshot Press eChapbook contest for in a flash, a series of train-themed haiku (published in 2019). In 2018 Alan was again voted Poet of the Year (for 2017) by the readers of The Heron’s Nest and was awarded first place in the Peggy Willis Lyles Haiku Awards. In 2019 Alan was tied for First Runner-up in the Heron’s Nest Readers’ Choice Awards (for 2018).

Recently Alan placed third in the 2019 Turtle Light Press Haiku Chapbook Contest, with Stirring Ashes, selections of which will be published online in late fall/early winter. He is happy to share some of his favorite haiku with Cornell University’s Mann Library haiku enthusiasts.