Laura Mullen

Laura Mullen (born 1958 in Los Angeles), is an American poet who has published 9 books of poetry.

Life and work
Mullen received her BA in English from UC Berkeley and her MFA in Poetry from the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop, before going to teach at, among other places, Colorado State University, where her courses included seminars on Modernism, Postmodernism, and Cross-Genre Writing. She’s also been invited as a guest author to teach at Brown University (2001, 2017), Naropa University's Summer Writing Program (1996, 2000, 2002, 2005, 2008), Columbia College – Chicago - (spring semester 2003), Brown University (2001), and the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop Summer Program, (1998). She was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, 1988 and has since received numerous other fellowships in the United States and abroad.

A professor at Louisiana State University for 17 years, in 2021, she became the Kenan Chair of Humanities at Wake Forest University.

On October 12, 2023, Mullen published on X (formerly Twitter) a condemnation of Israeli occupation: "So it's kind of a Duh but if you turn me out of my house plow my olive groves under and confine what's left of my family to the small impoverished state you run as an open air prison I could be tempted to shoot up your dance party yeah even knowing you will scorch the earth." As a result of the backlash, she resigned her position and left North Carolina.

Books

 * EtC, Solid Objects, 2023
 * Complicated Grief, Solid Objects, 2015
 * Enduring Freedom: A Little Book of Mechanical Brides, Otis Books / Seismicity Editions, 2012
 * Dark Archive University of California Press, New California Poetry Series, 2011
 * Murmur, (Futurepoem Books, New York City, 2007)
 * Subject University of California Press, New California Poetry Series, 2005—A song cycle by composer Jason Eckardt based on the final poem in Subject was released on Mode records in 2011
 * After I Was Dead (University of Georgia Press, Athens, GA, 1999)
 * The Tales of Horror, (Kelsey Stn Press, CA, 1999)
 * The Surface (University of Iowa Press, 1991)--National Poetry Series selection

Anthologized works

 * Poems for American Hybrid: A Norton Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, edited by Cole Swensen and David St John, W.W. Norton & Company, 2008)
 * Prose: "Torch Song" in Civil Disobediences: Poetics and Politics in Action (Coffee House Press, 2004).
 * Poems in The Book of Irish American Poetry (University of Notre Dame Press)
 * Prose in Paraspheres (Omnidawn Press).
 * Artist's statement and seven poems in The Iowa Anthology of New American Poetries (University of IA Press, 2004)
 * Poems: "House,” “For the Reader (Blank Book),” “Self-Portrait as Somebody Else,” and “After I Was Dead” in The Extraordinary Tide (2001)
 * “Museum Garden Cafe” collected in Night Out (1997)
 * Prose: “His Father” in Chick-Lit: Post-Feminist Fiction (1995)
 * “They,” in The Best American Poetry 1990 edited by David Lehman and Jorie Graham (Scribner’s, 1990).

Periodicals

 * Poems, Prose and Poetry Reviews have appeared in numerous print and online periodicals such as Bomb, Denver Quarterly, Ping Pong, Lingo , Fence, Xantippe, Aufgabe, New American Writing, Ploughshares–including also articles on her work, etc.--, Mipoesias, How2, Talisman, Cranky, on poets.org, BookForum, and in the Iowa Review.
 * See also a Hypertext piece by Laura Mullen on the AltX site: AltX.com

Grants, fellowships, literary awards & prizes

 * Louisiana Board of Regents ATLAS grant;
 * Manship Summer Research Fellowship (Louisiana State University) 2005;
 * MacDowell Colony Fellow: 2003, 1996, 1994, 1991, 1988;
 * Professional Development Grant for travel to France (2003);
 * Professional Development Grant for Travel to the Valparaíso Foundation in Spain (Mojacar, Spain), 1998;
 * Career Enhancement Grant, 1998;
 * Professional Development Program Fund Award, 1997;
 * Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award, 1996;
 * Max Orovitz Fellowship (University of Miami) 1993;
 * National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, 1988;
 * Karolyi Foundation Fellowship: 1989, 1988, 1987.
 * Linda Hull Memorial Prize, The Denver Quarterly (for “The Selected Letters”), 1996;
 * National Poetry Series winner (for The Surface), 1990;
 * Denver Quarterly Prize, 1986;
 * Eisner Prize (University of California, Berkeley), 1984;
 * Chauncy Wetmore Wells Prize (U.C. Berkeley), 1984;
 * Stanford Prize, Ironwood Review, 1983.