Eugene M. Gagliano

Known by many as the “teacher who dances on his desk,” Eugene M. Gagliano (pronounced Galiano) is a retired elementary teacher with a great sense of humor and whose author presentations are entertaining, informative and inspirational. He is a graduate of the Institute of Children’s Literature. Gagliano and his wife Carol, who have four children and seven grandchildren, live near the Big Horn Mountains in Wyoming with their two cats, Sitsi and Buster, and a purebred chow, Ruby. He enjoys reading and writing, traveling, hiking, acrylic painting, singing tenor in the community choir, and spending hours flower and vegetable gardening. He has presented at 165 schools, and at IRA, teacher, SCBWI, and library conferences, and for libraries and festivals in Wyoming, Colorado, Missouri, South Dakota, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Texas and Hawaii. Gene was the recipient of the IRA's 2004 Wyoming State Celebrate Literacy Award and the 2001 Arch Coal Teacher Achievement Award. Gene's book Dee and the Mammoth illustrated by Zachary Pullen, won the 2010-2011 Wyoming State Historical Society Award for Best Fiction. *Dee and the Mammoth represented the state of Wyoming at the National Book Festival in Washington, D.C. in 2011. His other books include C is for Cowboy, A Wyoming Alphabet; Four Wheels West, a Wyoming Number Book (a former Western Writer's Spur Award nominee); V is for Venus Flytrap, a Plant Alphabet; My Teacher Dances on the Desk (winner of the 2010 Delaware Diamonds Book List Children's Choice Award); Secret of the Black Widow (a former Wyoming Indian Paintbrush Award nominee); The Magic Box; Falling Stars; Inside the Clown; Booger; Little Wyoming; Angel's Landing; It It True (2017 children's humorous poetry); and Wedge of Fear (2018). Gene has written the words and music for his song, Wyoming, It's My Home. He is a graduate of the Institute of Children's Literature, is a member of Western Writers, Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, International Literacy Association, Wyoming Writers, Wyoming Poets, Johnson County Arts & Humanities Council and is on the Wyoming Arts Council Artists Roster. Gene is the Wyoming State Poet Laureate Emeritus.