Early in his career, Charles had an underground play (“Visigoths”) produced in Los Angeles, which led to scriptwriting contracts for several TV series, including “Kojack” and “Here Come the Brides.” He fled Hollywood, got an MFA in poetry, and went to Iran to teach literature at several Universities. For five years, he edited Seizure, a magazine of poetry and fiction. He has also been a cab driver, a social worker on Skid Row in Los Angeles, refugee worker in camps in Malaysia, Indonesia, and Costa Rica, and owner of a tour company. Recently published work includes stories and poems published in Liebamour, Writers Bloc, Commonline Journal, The Bactrian Room, Scythe, L’Amour Fou, and Blueline, and articles in Adirondack Life. Poems and stories have been anthologized in “Road Poets,” “Schroon River Anthology,” “Adirondack Epiphanies,” and “Karma in the High Peaks,” which won the “People’s Choice Award” for best book from the Adirondack Center for Writing, and he has twice won first place at the North Country Writers Festival. In 2015, he won the Patricia & Emmet Robinson Prize for best poem from the Poetry Society of South Carolina. His books include a collection of short stories, “Raptures,”  a volume of poetry, “Waking Up in a Beautiful Room,” and his newest work, “Cure Cottage,” a set of five one-act plays. If you would like to check out some of his poetry or books, click on the title or navigate to charleswatts.org. To see his page at Poets & Writers, click on www.pw.org/directory/writers/charles_watts

Charles Watts is a literary (and literal) nomad, having lived and worked in eight countries and published poems and stories in Iran, Malaysia, Pakistan, Brasil, and the USA. He currently splits his time between the High Peaks around Lake Placid, NY, and the lowcountry of Charleston, SC, heart and soul of the South. His choice of home bases is reflective of his poetry, full of contradictions and clashing images, humid heat, and bitter cold. The contrast suits him.