Pat Valdata

Pat Valdata (she/her) is an award-winning poet and fiction writer. She is the author of Where No Man Can Touch (West Chester University Press, 2015; re-released by Wind Canyon Books in 2023). Other books include Inherent Vice (Pecan Grove Press, 2011) and the chapbook Looking for Bivalve (Pecan Grove Press, 2022). Valdata also wrote the novels Eve’s Daughters (Moonshine Cove Publishing, LLC, 2020), winner of the first prize for novels from the Delaware Press Association and recipient of an honorable mention from the National Federation of Press Women; The Other Sister (Plainview Press, 2008), winner of a gold medal from the Hungarian Association’s Árpád Academy; and Crosswind (Wind Canyon Books 1996). 

Her work has appeared in anthologies including Nasty Women Poets: an Unapologetic Anthology of Subversive Verse (Lost Horse Press, 2017), The Cento: a Collection of Collage Poems (Red Hen Press, 2011), and Letters to the World: Poems from the Wom-Po LISTSERV (Red Hen Press, 2008). Her work has also appeared in literary magazines such as Ecotone, Ekphrastic Review, Italian Americana, Little Patuxent Review, North American Review, Passager, The Raintown Review, String Poet, and Valparaiso Poetry Review. 

Valdata is a recipient of the Independent Artist Award from the Maryland State Arts Council. In 2013, she received a grant from the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation for a residency at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She earned an MFA in writing from Goddard College. A native of New Jersey, Valdata is a retired university professor who lives in Crisfield, Maryland.