Author Biography

Fanny Howe (born 1940 in Boston, Massachusetts) is an American poet, novelist, and short story writer. She has written many novels in prose collection, and is the mother of novelist Danzy Senna. Her father was a lawyer and her Irish-born mother played in the Abbey Theatre of Dublin for some time. Howe is the recipient of the 2009 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, presented annually by the Poetry Foundation to a living U.S. poet whose lifetime accomplishments warrant extraordinary recognition. She is a sister of Susan Howe, also a poet. Howe has become (arguably) one of the most widely read of American experimental poets. She has also published several volumes of prose, including Lives of the Spirit/Glasstown: Where Something Got Broken (2005) and The Wedding Dress: Meditations on Word and Life (2003), a collection of essays. Several awards have been awarded to her, namely the 2001 Lenore Marshall and Poetry Prize, and the 2005 Griffin Poetry Prize.