Nynke Salverda Passi was born and raised in the Netherlands. Her work has been published in CALYX, Gulf Coast, Poetry Breakfast, Red River Review, Ilya’s Honey, Life & Legends, among other places. Her poetry has been anthologized in Pandemic Puzzle Pieces and River of Earth & Sky (Blue Light Press), Carrying the Branch (Glass Lyre Press), and Oxygen: Parables of the Pandemic (River Paw Press). Together with Rustin Larson and Christine Schrum, she edited the poetry collection Leaves by Night, Flowers by Day. Her essay “Oom Ealse and the Swan” was one of the finalists in the 2014 Editors’ Prize of The Missouri Review , and her essay “Baby Jesus Daubed with Cologne and Crowned with Gold Paper” was a finalist in the 2022 Editors’ Prize of The Missouri Review. Blue Light Press has accepted a manuscript of her poetry. Her work has also been featured on the websites of artists Toc Fetch and Ken Dubin and her poetry was featured in graphite in teh exposition “Bill’s Room" at ICON gallery in 2014.
Between 1992 - 2005 she served as a board member for the New England Writers’ Association and from 1992 - 1996 helped put on yearly N.E.W. conferences (either in Windsor, Vermont, or on the Dartmouth college campus), featuring guests such as Helen Nearing, Rosanna Warren, and Rosellen Brown. She also is a former member of A.L.T.A., the American Literary Translators’ Association.
Nynke has more than two decades of college and graduate teaching experience in creative writing. She is co-chair of the English department at M.I.U. where she founded the B.A. and M.F.A. programs in creative writing. She is the director of M.I.U.’s Online M.F.A. in Creative Writing. The program uses trauma-informed, anti-racist pedagogy and is inclusive and diverse; it’s also innovative in that it teaches creative writing from a basis of creativity, focusing on the writer and the creative process before the creative product. It uses meditation and wellness as tools to open and deepen the creative imagination; unsilences the workshop, adopting alternatives to the traditional workshop model; and uses a narrative evaluation method of grading that cultures meta-cognition and encourages experimentation and play.
Nynke is the founder and director of Soul Bone℠, an online hub for poets and writers of all skill levels and in all phases of their careers with offerings of workshops and collaborations that explore the relationships between writing, creativity, and healing. Soul Bone℠ is both a Literary Center and a literary festival - online and open to the public. Workshops, readings, and panel discussions encourage vulnerable, creative exploration and experimentation; approach spirituality, meditation, and self-care as tools to open up the creative imagination; offer writing as a healing modality while exploring all aspects of the craft of writing in-depth. Over the years, a global, authentically diverse, and inclusive community has grown around Soul Bone℠. Poets and writers attend the online literary festivals from all over the globe. Irish festival guest Mari Maxwell returns year after year; she says: “Soul Bone has been a life changing experience I treasure daily. I am thrilled to be visiting Soul Bone and anchoring myself among the most incredible tribe of authentic creative souls I’ve ever met!”