Outstanding Literary Artist: Individual artists whose work within their field has made a significant impact within the discipline over five years or more.
Michael Gill
Michael Gill is founding executive director of Collective Arts Network, and editor and publisher of CAN Journal. His arts journalism career began in the early nineties, writing for regional publications, as well as the National Endowment for the Humanities magazine. Subsequently he was arts editor at the Cleveland Free Times and Cleveland Scene at a time when both had full sections covering visual art, classical music and jazz, theater, dance, and books every week. CAN was created after a series of dialogs among visual art organizations to fill the void when declining newspapers left the region’s visual art scene without any forum for public discussion. Under his leadership, CAN Journal was named Best Magazine in Ohio in 2019 by the Press Club of Cleveland, and he was named Best in Ohio in Reviews and Criticism in 2022 and 2023.
He came to print making as a writer. He has a BA in English (Hiram College, Ohio, 1986) and an MFA in Creative Writing (Eastern Washington University, Cheney / Spokane, Washington, 1988). He lived, worked, and studied in Washington DC, England, Wales, and Ecuador before returning to Cleveland. His poetry has been published in dozens of literary and other magazines, including Rolling Stone, and several chapbooks, which include The Atheist at Prayer (March Street Press, Greensboro, North Carolina) and The Solution to the Crisis is Revolution: Graffiti of Ecuador, collected and translated (Ox Head Press, Browerville, Minnesota). He began making books as a way to give stories to his children. He has exhibited in solo shows at William Busta Gallery, BAYarts Sullivan Gallery, Tregoning & Co., and the Massillon Museum, and internationally at the Alte Feuerwasche Loschwitz Gallery during a residency at the Grafikwerkstatt in Dresden, Germany.
His books are held in the Cleveland Public Library Special Collections, as well as in artist book collections of Baylor University, Columbus College of Art and Design, Otis College of Art and Design, the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, Graffikwerkstatt Dresden (Germany) and Ediciones Vigia (Matanzas, Cuba), and in private collectons in Germany, France, and the United Kingdom.
