Colleen J. McElroy

Colleen J. McElroy (October 31, 1935, in St. Louis, Missouri – December 12, 2023) was an American poet, short story writer, editor, memoirist.

Life
She graduated from Kansas State University (1958) and from the University of Washington 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, until her death in December 2023.

Awards

 * 1978 awarded the NEA Creative Writing Fellowship for Poetry
 * 1985 American Book Award
 * 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.

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

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