Mary Biddinger received an Honors B.A. in English with a Creative Writing Subconcentration from the
University of Michigan. She also holds a
MFA in Poetry from
Bowling Green State University and a Ph.D. in English with a Creative Dissertation from the
University of Illinois at Chicago. Biddinger is the author of the poetry collections
Prairie Fever (Steel Toe Books, 2007),
Saint Monica (Black Lawrence Press, 2011),
O Holy Insurgency (Black Lawrence Press, 2013), and
A Sunny Place with Adequate Water (Black Lawrence Press, 2014). Her poems have appeared in numerous literary magazines, including
Copper Nickel,
Crazyhorse,
Guernica,
Gulf Coast,
The Iowa Review,
32 poems,
Ninth Letter,
North American Review,
Ploughshares, and
Third Coast. Biddinger is the recipient of a 2015 National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship in poetry. She is a professor in the Department of English at the
University of Akron, and was Director of the NEOMFA: Northeast Ohio Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program from 2009 to 2012. Biddinger teaches courses in poetry writing, craft and theory of poetry, and literature. Biddinger is the editor of the Akron Series in Poetry, which sponsors the annual
Akron Poetry Prize and publishes three poetry collections every year. Biddinger also serves as co-editor, with
John Gallaher, of the Akron Series in Contemporary Poetics at the
University of Akron Press. The first volume, titled
The Monkey and the Wrench: Essays into Contemporary Poetics, was published in January 2011. In 2007, Biddinger founded
Barn Owl Review, an independent literary magazine published in
Akron,
Ohio. == Awards ==