Lois Roma-Deeley

Lois Roma-Deeley is a poet, editor, and educator. She was born on Long Island, New York, but has resided in Scottsdale, Arizona, with her family since 1979. She holds an MFA in poetry from Arizona State University and a PhD, with a primary emphasis in poetry, from the Union Institute and University. 

Roma-Deeley is the author of six poetry collections: Waiting for the Mercy Ship (Broadstone Books, 2025); Like Water in the Palm of My Hand (Kelsay Books, 2022); The Short List of Certainties (Franciscan University Press, 2017), winner of the Jacopone da Todi Book Prize; High Notes (Benu Press, 2010), a Paterson Poetry Prize finalist; Northsight (Singularity Press, 2006); and Rules of Hunger (Star Cloud Press, 2004). 

Roma-Deeley is a four-time recipient of creative writing residency fellowships at the Ragdale Foundation in Lake Forest, Illinois, as well as a recipient of an Artist Research and Development Grant from the Arizona Commission on the Arts. She has also received grants from the Scottsdale Cultural Council, City of Tempe, Poets & Writers, and the Chicago Humanities Festival. Her other honors include being named U.S. Professor of the Year, Community College, by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE). In 2012, she received a Making a Difference for Women Award from Soroptimist International of Phoenix.

Roma-Deeley is associate editor of Presence: A Journal of Catholic Poetry. Formerly, she was co-editor for poetry at National Forum magazine (now titled Phi Kappa Phi Forum) for more than ten years. Roma-Deeley has also served as a creative writing contest judge at the local, state, and national levels and teaches one college-level poetry class a year. She has read her work and given presentations nationally at colleges, universities, museums and galleries, arts organizations, and community centers. In 2014, the Dr. Lois Roma-Deeley Creative Writing Scholarship was established by Paradise Valley Community College (PVCC), where she had served as residential faculty and poet in residence. She also founded and directed the creative writing and women’s studies programs at PVCC. In addition, she served as president and founder of the Creative Writing Women’s Caucus. 

Roma-Deeley currently serves as the poet laureate of Scottsdale, Arizona. In 2024, she received an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship.