Tanka Society of America

After thinking about it for many years, and planning it for about a year, I founded the Tanka Society of America. I organized and led the inaugural meeting on 14 April 2000, at the Global Haiku Festival at Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois. I took advantage of this location because it enabled people from across the country to participate, which I thought was better than having the inaugural meeting in California as I had originally planned. Fourteen poets were present for this inaugural meeting, mostly at my invitation. By the end of December 2000, ninety-six poets had joined the society as charter members, and the society thrives today with more than 350 members, primarily in the United States. In 2002, I edited the society’s first membership anthology, Castles in the Sand. And in 2020, for the society’s twentieth anniversary, I edited that year’s anthology, Dance into the World. I also manage the society’s website, which underwent an extensive redesign in late 2021. For more information about the Tanka Society of America, please see the following links:

• Tanka Society of America

• A Chat about Tanka (see postscript at the end about TSA’s formation)

• Inaugural Meeting (see also the attendee list)

• A Tanka Turning Point (about the first TSA conference in 2003)

• Coming Into Our Own: The Tanka Society of America’s Fifteenth Anniversary