Why Dance?

R. Nikolas Macioci earned a PhD from The Ohio State University, and for thirty years taught for the Columbus City Schools. In addition to English, he taught Drama and developed a Writers Seminar for select students. OCTELA, the Ohio Council of Teachers of English, named Nik Macioci the best secondary English teacher in the state of Ohio.

Nik is the author of two chapbooks:

- Cafes of Childhood

- Greatest Hits

as well as eight other books:

- Why Dance

- Necessary Windows

- Cafes of Childhood (original with additional poems)

- Mother Goosed

- Occasional Heaven

- A Human Saloon

- Rustle Rustle Thump Thump

- Rough.

Critics and judges called Cafes of Childhood a "beautifully harrowing account of child abuse," but not "sentimental" or "self-pitying," an "amazing book," and "a single unified whole." Cafes of Childhood was submitted for the Pulitzer Prize in 1992. In addition, more than two hundred of his poems have been published here and abroad in magazines and journals, including The Society of Classical Poets Journal, Chiron, Concho River Review, The Bombay Review, and Blue Unicorn.

He won First Place in the 1987 National Writers' Union Poetry Competition, judged by Denise Levertov, First Place in The Baudelaire Award Competition, sponsored by The World Order of Narrative and Formalist Poets (1989), Second Place in Zone 3's first annual Rainmaker Awards, judged by Howard Nemerov (1989), and Second Place in the Writer's Digest annual competition, judged by Diane Wakoski (1991).