WriterHarryette Mullen

Harryette Mullen was born in Florence, Alabama (birthplace of W.C. Handy, self-proclaimed father of the blues). She earned her M.A. and Ph.D. from University of California, Santa Cruz. She has been a visiting faculty member at Callaloo Writers Workshop, Cave Canem Poets Workshop, Community of Writers at Squaw Valley, Idyllwild Summer Arts, Napa Valley Writers Conference, and Naropa University. Her work has been selected twice for the annual Best American Poetry anthology. She is the author of seven poetry books, most recently Recyclopedia (Graywolf, 2006), Blues Baby (Bucknell, 2002) and Sleeping with the Dictionary (University of California, 2002). The latter was a finalist for a National Book Award, National Book Critics Circle Award, and Los Angeles Times Book Prize. In 2004 she received a grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts and in 2005 she was awarded a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. She currently lives in Los Angeles, where she teaches courses in American Poetry, African-American Literature, and Creative Writing in English and African American Studies at UCLA.