Mary Biddinger

• Name — Mary Biddinger • Born — 14 May 1974 • Birthplace — Fremont, California • Occupation — Writer, Academic • Website — http: www.marybiddinger.com

Mary Biddinger received a B.A. in English from the University of Michigan. She holds an MFA in Poetry from Bowling Green State University and a Ph.D. in English from the Program for Writers at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Biddinger is the author of numerous books, most recently the novella-in-flash The Girl with the Black Lipstick (2025), and the poetry collection Department of Elegy (2022), both with Black Lawrence Press. Biddinger is the recipient of a 2015 National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship in Poetry and the 2019 Mid-Career Cleveland Arts Prize for Literature. Biddinger is a professor in the Department of English at the University of Akron, and has served as Director of the NEOMFA: Northeast Ohio Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program. She teaches courses in creative writing and literature.

• The Girl with the Black Lipstick, 2025, Black Lawrence Press • A Mollusk Without a Shell: Essays on Self-Care for Writers (with Julie Brooks Barbour), 2024, University of Akron Press • Department of Elegy, 2022, Black Lawrence Press • Partial Genius, 2019, Black Lawrence Press • Small Enterprise, 2015, Black Lawrence Press • A Sunny Place with Adequate Water, 2014, Black Lawrence Press • O Holy Insurgency, 2013, Black Lawrence Press • Prairie Fever, 2007, Steel Toe Books