BIO

                                                                         Brief Bio for Mary Ann Larkin

        Mary Ann Larkin is a poet, writer, teacher and former fund-raising and publications consultant to nonprofit organizations. The Coil of the Skin, a first chapbook of poems, was published by Washington Writers Publishing House in 1982. She is the author of four other chapbooks: White Clapboard with art by A. Brockie Stevenson, by Carol Allen of Philadelphia; The DNA of the Heart with poet Patric Pepper, published by Pond Road Press; A Shimmering That Goes With Us by Finishing Line Press in 2005; and gods & flesh by Plan B Press in early 2007. Her book That Deep and Steady Hum was published by Broadkill River Press in 2010. Her poems have appeared in Poetry Ireland Review, New Letters, Poetry Greece, Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac and numerous other magazines, as well as in more than twenty local and national anthologies, including America in Poetry and Loving, a poetry and art series published by Harry N. Abrams Inc. of New York.

           She has taught writing and literature in a number of colleges and universities, most recently at Howard University in Washington, DC. Other teaching appointments were at Saint Louis University; College of Saint Teresa and Saint Mary’s College in Winona, Minnesota; Hiram College in Hiram, Ohio; Montgomery College in Rockville, Maryland; George Washington University in Washington, DC; and the University of the District of Columbia.

           Her involvement with poetry includes co-founding the Big Mama Poetry Troupe, a performing group of feminist poets, who did more than eighty shows from New York to Chicago in the seventies; giving numerous workshops and readings in schools, churches, jails and saloons; and writing about poetry for Foundation News, National Public Radio, and The Watershed Foundation, producers of literary radio programming. In 2003, she and her husband, the poet Patric Pepper, founded Pond Road Press. In 2006, the press released Tough Heaven: Poems of Pittsburgh by Jack Gilbert. Poems from Shubad’s Crown by Meredith Holmes, their first publication, have been featured on Garrison Keillor’s Writer's Almanac and Poems for Bad Times. The Poets and Writers League of Greater Cleveland named it one of the 25 best books for 2003-2004. In 2009 she was awarded a month-long residency at Jentel, a retreat for writers and artist in Wyoming. Larkin has also been a member of the Capitol Hill Poetry Group since 1977.

           Larkin also worked as President of the Board of the Independent School and as the founding director of the Early Childhood Enrichment Center in Cleveland, Ohio. As a publication consultant in Washington, DC, she wrote for National Geographic, National Institutes of Health, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Energy, and other clients. Before returning to full-time teaching at Howard University in 1992, she was Director of Major Donor Relations for Africare, a Washington, D.C. organization doing development work in rural Africa.

           Born in Pittsburgh, she lives in Washington, DC and in North Truro, Massachusetts.