Cheryl Pallant is an award winning author, poet, dancer, healer, somaticist, coach, professor and workshop leader. Her recent books are the poetry collection, Light at the End of the Word, and the nonfiction book, Ecosomatics: Embodiment Practices for a World in Search of Healing. Previous books include Her Body Listening, a collection of poetry; Ginseng Tango, a memoir about living in South Korea; and Writing and the Body in Motion: Awakening Voice through Somatic Practice, on somatic writing; and Contact Improvisation: an Introduction to a Vitalizing Dance Form, on this seminal dance.
Other books in poetry include Continental Drifts, Morphs, Uncommon Grammar Cloth, and Into Stillness; chapbooks, Poetry by Chocolate, The Phrase, Declaration of Independence, and Spontaneities.
Additionally, poetry, fiction, and nonfiction have appeared in numerous print and online magazines such as Fence, HOW2, Tarpaulin Sky, North Dakota Quarterly, Oxford Magazine, Spirituality & Health Magazine, where she is a regular contributor, and in several anthologies like An Introduction to the Prose Poem, Hope Beneath Our Feet, and Spiritual Herstories. She has published over 200 reviews and interviews with dancers, writers, performance artists, and spiritual practitioners from around the globe and was dance critic for a local newspaper for twelve years.
She received the Theresa Pollak Prize for Excellence in the Arts. Into Stillness was Finalist for the Virginia Books Award and the Southeastern Book Association. Her essay “Gifting Poetry” was chosen as Finalist for the Bechtel Prize. She has received several grants from the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with the Richmond Arts Council.
She teaches at University of Richmond and leads workshops on writing, poetry, contact improvisation, Writing From the Body, contemplative movement, ecosomatics, meditation, mindfulness, embodiment, and healing at schools, hospitals, and art and spiritual centers throughout the U.S. and abroad. She founded RVA Litwalk, performs with the theater-dance group Song-ah, maintained the Richmond Contact Improvisation Jam for 25 years, co-founded the Spring East Coast Contact Improvisation Jam and organized the Fall East Coast Contact Improvisation Jam for 18 years.
She practices meditation, drawing from more than four decades of Transcendental Meditation, Tibetan Bon Buddhism, and Soto Zen, and is an interfaith minister and co-founder of Integral Meditation Group at Ekoji Buddhist Sangha. She received a PhD in Somatic Writing and certification in Reiki and Healing Touch, training also in Process-Oriented Psychology, Authentic Movement, and yoga. Ongoing interests include bicycling, hiking, tango, Zouk, sustainability, shamanism, presence, embodiment, flow, delight, and really good pizza. She lives in Richmond, Virginia.
Contact: cheryl@cherylpallant.com