A fierce appeal for justice and contemplative record of its absence

Human rights and diversity are themes that recur in her poetry and in her books for young readers. She credits her parochial school education and her parents’ examples for steeping her in community — as well as international — awareness and service. Shea also writes about environmental themes. This kind of writing developed when she moved to Connecticut in the mid-1980’s and explored nature with her children.

Shea has published widely in prose, in children’s fiction and nonfiction, as well as in articles and essays for adult readers.

She teaches Creative Writing at the University of Connecticut and online through the Institute of Children’s Literature. She is poet laureate of the Town of Vernon and directs Poetry Rocks, a quarterly reading series she founded five years ago.

She praises poetry for its “spareness, depth, rhythms, and sounds.” Shea claims that these attributes