Julene Waffle is a secondary English teacher in rural upstate New York, who occasionally adjuncts at SUNY Oneonta and Hartwick College in the education departments. She advises several clubs and coaches the varsity softball team in addition to teaching while being an active member of her church and local scouting unit. She is a co-owner of Colonial Ridge Golf Course, with husband, Jeff Waffle and mother-in-law, Mona Waffle. She loves nature and her family. She lives in a house full of men: she is the mother of three sons, three cats, two dogs, and a fish; and she’d probably mother more if she had room. And, of course, she is a writer.
Julene earned her Bachelor’s degree in English with emphases in American Literature, Writing, and Education, as well as a Religious Studies Minor from Hartwick College, Oneonta, NY, where she was also a two-sport athlete for all four years. In addition, she earned her Master’s of Science in English Education from Binghamton University. Her work has appeared in journals and newspapers, including The Adroit Blog, Mslexia, NCTE's The English Journal, The Daily Star, The English Record; NYSEC NEWS; River, Blood, and Corn: Literary Journal, A Community of Voices; New York State Writers Institute: The Conversation On-line, Fresh Words, and an anthology of poems entitled Planet in Crisis (2020) by FootHills Publishing, and Seeing Things an anthology published by Woodland Arts and Bright Hill Press (2020). Her first chapbook was So I Will Remember was published by Woodland Arts Editions in October 2020. While she hopes the erudite scholar will like her work, she more than hopes that her poetry speaks to the everyday people of her everyday life. Follow Julene on Twitter @JuleneWaffle
New York Born and Raised.
Julene is New York born and raised. She has always preferred nature to everything else--even cartoons as a child (Jacques Cousteau and Marty Stouffer's Wild American lorded over The Muppet Show and Sunday night Disney). Today, besides her family and pets, she loves trees and nature most out of all life's pleasures. She could not live (at least happily) without her big backyard which includes an almost four-mile hiking trail she cut with her own hands with the occasional help of friends and family. She was born in Massapequa and lived in Massapequa Park, NY, until she was ten. Even at an early age she gathered toads and fed them, cared for rabbits, talked to the tiger lilies in her back yard. Eventually, she moved to Andes, NY, where she found escape from teenage angst in the forest. She attended Hartwick College in The City of the Hills in Oneonta, NY. Even there she relished the view of the wooded valley around campus. After graduating, she found a position as a secondary English teacher in Morris, NY, and finished her Master's Degree at Binghamton University. She still teaches in Morris after all these years and now she owns Colonial Ridge Golf Course with her husband and her mother-in-law in Laurens, NY. The almost four-mile Glenn Waffle Memorial Hiking Trail surrounds the golf course; she made it so others could share her love (and her father-in-law's love) of the outdoors. The trail is scattered with educational information as well as some of her favorite poems by Oliver and Frost. One of her favorite things to do is walk the trail with her three boys, her two dogs, three cats, bearded dragon, and her husband.