Colleen J. McElroy (October 31, 1935, in

St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis ( , sometimes referred to as St. Louis City, Saint Louis or STL) is an Independent city (United States), independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It lies near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Miss ...

– December 12, 2023) was an American

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...

short story A short story is a piece of prose fiction. It can typically be read in a single sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the old ...

writer,

editor Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible, or cinematic material used by a person or an entity to convey a message or information. The editing process can involve correction, condensation, organization, a ...

memoirist A memoir (; , ) is any nonfiction narrative A narrative, story, or tale is any account of a series of related events or experiences, whether non-fictional (memoir, biography, news report, documentary, travel literature, travelogue, etc.) ...

Life

She graduated from

Kansas State University Kansas State University (KSU, Kansas State, or K-State) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university with its main campus in Manhattan, Kansas, United States. It was opened as the state's land-grant coll ...

(1958) and from the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW and informally U-Dub or U Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, the University of Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast of the Uni ...

with a Ph.D. (1973). She was a Professor Emeritus at the University of Washington, where she was the first African-American woman to serve as a full-time faculty member. From 1995 to 2006, she edited '' The Seattle Review'', first in the role of Poetry Editor, then as Editor-in-Chief. She lived in

Seattle, Washington Seattle ( ) is the List of municipalities in Washington, most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington (state), Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the List of Unit ...

, until her death in December 2023.

Awards

* 1978 awarded the NEA Creative Writing Fellowship for Poetry * 1985

American Book Award The American Book Awards are an American literary award that annually recognizes a set of books and people for "outstanding literary achievement". According to the 2010 awards press release, it is "a writers' award given by other writers" and "t ...

* 1988 Fulbright Creative Writing Fellowship, which took her to Yugoslavia * 1991 awarded the NEA Creative Writing Fellowship for Fiction * 1992 DuPont Distinguished Scholar in Residence * 1991 Rockefeller Fellowship to the Bellagio Center in Lake Como, Italy * 1993 Fulbright Creative Writing Fellowship, which took her to Madagascar.

Works

Poetry

*''Sidewalk Games'' *''Webs and Weeds'' *''Out Here Even Crows Commit Suicide'' *''Lothar's Wife'' *''Sleeping with the moon: poems'' *''Travelling music'' *''Bone Flames: Poems'' *''Music from home: selected poems''

Memoirs

*''A Long Way from St. Louie'' *''Over the Lip of the World: Among the Storytellers of Madagascar''

Short stories

*''Driving under the cardboard pines and other stories'' *Jesus and Fat Tuesday: and other short stories

Anthologies

*''Best American Poetry 2001'' *''Oxford Anthology of African American Literature''

''
Ploughshares ''Ploughshares'' is an American literary journal established in 1971 by DeWitt Henry and Peter O'Malley in The Plough and Stars, an Irish pub in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Since 1989, ''Ploughshares'' has been based at Emerson College in Bost ...
''

*''While Poets Are Watching'' *''Caution: This Woman Brakes for Memories '' *''Paris Subway Tango'' *''Crossing the Rubicon at Seventy'' *''Furlough''

References

External links

McElroy, Colleen J. (b. 1935)
at

HistoryLink HistoryLink is an online encyclopedia of Washington (state), Washington state history. The site has more than 8,100 entries and attracts 23,000 weekly visitors. It has 500 biographies and more than 14,000 images. The non-profit historical organi ...

1935 births 2023 deaths 21st-century American women American Book Award winners American women academics American women poets Kansas State University alumni PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award winners University of Washington alumni University of Washington faculty Writers from St. Louis {{US-editor-stub