Eugene Gagliano

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Poet Laureate of Wyoming, 2016–2023
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Eugene Gagliano is a retired elementary school teacher, children’s author, and poet. In 1966, he received his AAS degree in ornamental horticulture from the State University of New York (SUNY) College of Agriculture and Technology at Cobleskill and, in 1969, he received his BS degree in elementary education from the State University of New York (SUNY) College at Geneseo.

Gagliano is the author of numerous children’s books, including Is It True?: A Collection of Children’s Poetry (Sastrugi Press LLC, 2017), selected by Wyoming State Library to represent the state of Wyoming at the National Book Festival in Washington, D.C.; Little Wyoming (Sleeping Bear Press, 2013); The Magic Box (2011), a self-published book of children’s poetry illustrated by Zachary Pullen; Dee and the Mammoth (Tate Geological Museum, 2010), also illustrated by Pullen; My Teacher Dances on the Desk (Sleeping Bear Press, 2009), a collection of children’s poetry; V is for Venus Flytrap, a Plant Alphabet (Sleeping Bear Press, 2009); Four Wheels West, a Wyoming Number Book (Sleeping Bear Press, 2006), a 2006–07 Western Writers of America Spur Award nominee; C is for Cowboy, a Wyoming Alphabet (Sleeping Bear Press, 2003); and Secret of the Black Widow (White Mane Press, 2002). He is also the author of the YA novels Falling Stars (PublishAmerica, 2004) and Inside the Clown (PublishAmerica, 2003).

Gagliano is the recipient of the 2001 Arch Coal Teacher Achievement Award and the 2004 Wyoming State Literacy Award. His book, Dee and the Mammoth, won the 2010 Wyoming State Historical Society Award for Best Fiction and represented the state of Wyoming at the National Book Festival in Washington, D.C., in 2011.

A member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, Wyoming Writers, Wyoming Poets, and a member, as well as a past president, of the Johnson County Chapter of the International Literary Association, Gagliano has presented at many conferences, including the Montana State Reading Conference. He has taught elementary education for thirty-four years.

A native of Niagara Falls, New York, Gagliano has been a resident of Buffalo, Wyoming, for more than forty-five years. In 2016, Gagliano was appointed the eighth poet laureate of Wyoming and will serve through 2023.