Brief Biography/About Me

Marlys West is a Michener Fellow at the University of Texas, a Princeton Hodder Fellow, and a recipient of an NEA Poetry Fellowship. Her first poetry collection was published by the University of Akron Press, and her newest, The Vital Function of Constant Narrative, won first prize in a national manuscript contest. A more complete list of publications, honors, and awards is available here.

She is currently at work on a poetry memoir about the bodies of water that shaped her early life, from the Mississippi River and Great Seneca Creek to Sausalito Bay, Lake Waramaug, and the sound by Long Beach Island. She is also writing long fiction for young people, and a collection of literary ghost stories is currently in circulation.

She lives in Los Angeles, where she raised her two children and is currently rebuilding her art studio and herbal garden.