About Us

About Us:

Catherine Powers and Mike Fedel met each other in high school.  Forget about the year—it’s not important.  Their first writing hijinks together were editing an underground high school newspaper.  The newspaper gracefully died after two issues once its aim was achieved--namely, getting called into the principal’s office. After that, there were long periods where they did not communicate.  Mike and his wife moved to California and Catherine began a series of destructive relationships. They found out at some point in the late 1990s that they were both in Ann Arbor.  After another period of non-communication due to the business of modern life they joined forces again in 2013 to create Ann Arbor Poets Online.

Catherine’s Bio:

Born on an air force base in Hempstead, Long Island, NY.  Grew up in Northampton, MA (home of Calvin Coolidge, Smith College, where Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf was filmed and according to the National Enquirer “the lesbian capital of the United States”).

Catherine’s first attempt at poetry in high school garnered an award from Scholastic magazine and the Detroit Free Press.  She went into seclusion soon after her senior semester of shining hope when an unnamed University of Michigan poet/literary thug came to her high school classroom.  Ostensibly, he came to assist budding young writers, but he only assisted in crushing young Catherine's spirit completely.  She still managed to publish several poems and short stories in local and regional journals and magazines and won Eastern Michigan University's 1^st Place Literary Award from the Collegium for Academic Excellence. Catherine will publish her first chapbook, 28 Years Since My Last Confession, in fall 2013.

Catherine’s academic credentials include a Masters in Social Work from the University of Michigan—Ann Arbor and a Master of Art degree in English/Professional Writing from Eastern Michigan University.   Catherine has worked as a psychotherapist, consultant/trainer, teacher, and college administrator.  Her non-professional life has included stints as a pizza delivery girl, valet parker, waitress, and maid (for two days at the Dearborn Travel Lodge until it was announced her shift would begin at 5 a.m.)  Catherine confided recently to anyone that would listen that she is done with academia and now will only take Jazzercise classes (non-credit).


Mike’s Bio:

Mike is still seeking the perfect bio. He wrote it up once and is still looking for it. It was very cool.

In the meantime, here's some pertinent information: Mike has been writing at least as far back as 8th grade. He knows this because he remembers his mother letting him stay home from Catholic school one day to finish his first novel. It had something to do with the S.C.D.F.B.I. (Special Children's Division of the FBI), superpowers, and the hovering Red Menace. No copy exists and he's still on the fence about whether he thinks that this is a good or a bad thing.

For most of the last 35 years(!), his main mode of expression has been as a musician/singer/songwriter. He's currently playing jazz with Five Miles More and "70s rock" with The Bonfire Poets. In the last few years, he's discovered Improvisation, Performance Studies and got an ADD diagnosis (ADHD, Predominantly Inattentive Type - which explains a LOT of the last 40 years).  During those 40 years, he accumulated a BA in Religious Studies, an MA in Systematic Theology/Philosophy of Religion and taught for several semesters (at EMU, WCC, and online for UC-Berkeley since 1993), travelled the world teaching software for Verhoef, Arbortext, and PTC and successfully made the conversion from charcoal to propane grills.

His day job is software (which started as a summer job back in 1974), he has a wife in Ann Arbor (who makes a mean chicken piccata) and a daughter who's majoring in English (and has done some really solid stand-up comedy over the years), he lost his 8-year old daughter Amy to a drunk driver in 1998 (well "lost" isn't the right word, is it?), and loves parenthetical asides in his writing (some people say I use them too much, but I [obvioiusly] disagree).