Terry Wolverton is author of ten books, including her most recent, Wounded World: lyric essays about our spiritual disquiet.

Of her most recent poetry collection, Shadow and Praise, poet Gerald Locklin wrote, “These poems vibrate with controlled breathing, like American mantras infused with Eastern scriptural spirituality.  I have the highest admiration for this achievement by a poet and human being who has spent a lifetime in preparation for such a crowning achievement.”

Embers is a novel-in-poems about which poet Anne Waldman has said, “…this book is a commitment to the beauties and scintillating particulars of a generous language.  This is a tremendous weave of site and humanity.”  Embers was a finalist for the PEN USA Litfest Poetry Award and the Lambda Book Award. 

Insurgent Muse: life and art at the Woman’s Building, a memoir published in 2002 by City Lights Books, was named one of the “Best Books of the West” in 2002 by the Los Angeles Times, winner of the 2003 Publisher’s Triangle Judy Grahn Award, and a finalist for the Lambda Book Award. 

Wolverton's debut novel, Bailey’s Beads, was a finalist in the American Library Association’s Gay and Lesbian Book Awards for 1997; Kirkus Reviews said of it, “her ambitious debut…features…a stark but melodious prose style…confident style and affecting characters.”  Wolverton's other works of fiction include two novels, Stealing Angel and The Labrys Reunion, and Breath and other stories, a collection of her short fiction.

Wolverton has also published two other collections of poetry: Black Slip, a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award in 1993, and Mystery Bruise.

She has edited several successful compilations, including (with Robert Drake) the Lambda Literary Award-winning His: brilliant new fiction by gay men and Hers: brilliant new fiction by lesbians, volumes 1, 2, and 3; and the series Circa 2000: Lesbian Fiction At the Millennium and Gay Fiction At the Millennium. She edited the poetry anthology, Mischief, Caprice, and Other Poetic Strategies and co-edited (with Sondra Hale) the anthology From Site to Vision: the Woman’s Building in contemporary culture; published as an e-book in 2007, a print edition was released in fall 2011.

She is also currently working with composer David Ornette Cherry to adapt Embers as a jazz opera, to be directed by Michael John Garcés.

Terry has taught creative writing for over three decades; in 1997, she founded Writers at Work, a center for creative writing in Los Angeles, where she teaches fiction, creative nonfiction and poetry.  She is also an Associate Faculty Mentor for the MFA Writing Program at Antioch University Los Angeles. In addition, she is also a certified instructor of Kundalini Yoga.

Website: www.terrywolverton.com

Twitter Username: @TerryLWolverton

Publications

• Wounded World: lyric essays about our spiritual disquiet , Silverton Books (January 5, 2013)
• Breath and other stories , Silverton Books (April 2012)
• Stealing Angel , Spinsters Ink (June 2011)
• The Labrys Reunion , Spinsters Ink (September 2009)
• Shadow and Praise , Main Street Rag (February 2007)
• Embers, a novel in poems , Red Hen Press (September 2003)
• Insurgent Muse: life and art at the Woman's Building , City Lights Publishers (September 2002)
• Mystery Bruise , Red Hen Press (October 1999)
• Bailey's Beads , Faber & Faber, Inc. (1996)
• Black Slip , Clothespin Fever Press (1992)

Awards

• COLA (City of Los Angeles Artist Fellowship)(2005)
• California Arts Council Artist Fellowship, Poetry(2001)

Employment

• Affiliate Faculty, MFA Writing Program at Antioch University Los Angeles (June 2007 - )
• Founder and Director at Writers At Work (October 1997 - )

Genres of Interest

Fiction, Creative nonfiction, Poetry