Nicole Cooley, poet,  novelist, professor and director of the MFA program at Queens College, City University of New York, will read from her new book of poems on motherhood.Nicole Cooley: Award-winning poet, writerEnlarge this image

Her reading will be Wednesday, April 22, from 4-6 p.m. in the MARIAL Center conference room, on the 4th floor of Building A at 1256 Briarcliff Road in Atlanta. The reading is free and open to the public.

Her first book of poems, Resurrection, won the 1995 Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets and was published by LSU Press in 1996. Her second book of poems The Afflicted Girls (2004) was named one of the best books of poetry of the year by Library Journal. She has also published a novel with Harper Collins (1998), Judy Garland, Ginger Love. Her fourth book, a collection of poems about Hurricane Katrina, titled Breach, is forthcoming next year from LSU Press. 

She has been awarded an NEA, a Georgia Arts Council Grant, a New Jersey Arts Council Grant, a fellowship from the American Antiquarian Society and the Discovery/The Nation award. Nicole Cooley has taught at Bucknell University. She currently is an associate professor of English and Creative Writing at Queens College-City University of New York. She also directs the new MFA Program in Creative Writing and Literary Translation there.

Nicole Cooley grew up in New Orleans, Louisiana. She received her B.A. from Brown University, her M.F.A. from The Iowa Writers' Workshop, and her Ph.D. from Emory University.

Her poems have appeared in many publications including Poetry, Field, Ploughshares, Poetry Northwest, and The Nation.