Doug Ramspeck has been teaching creative writing at The Ohio State University-Lima since 1999, and he began directing the Writing Center in 2001. Ramspeck's poetry collection, Black Tupelo Country, received The 2007 John Ciardi Prize for Poetry. Several hundred of his poems have been published by journals that include Epoch, Prairie Schooner, Third Coast, Rattle, Confrontation Magazine, Nimrod International Journal, New York Quarterly, Hayden's Ferry, Hunger Mountain, and Passages North. In 2009 he received an Individual Excellence Award in Poetry from the Ohio Arts Council.