Erin Belieu

Early life

Belieu was born and raised in Omaha, Nebraska, graduating from Central High School. She attended Boston University, and Ohio State University receiving advanced degrees in the area of poetry.

Career

Belieu previously taught at Washington University, Boston University, Kenyon College, and Ohio University. She now teaches in the highly ranked MFA/Ph.D. Creative Writing Program at Florida State University.

Her work has appeared in places such as The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, Slate, Nerve, The Yale Review, TriQuarterly, Ploughshares, The New York Times, Tin House, and The Virginia Quarterly Review. Her poetry collections include Infanta, One Above & One Below, Black Box and Slant Six. She has served as managing editor of AGNI.

In September 2006, Belieu was invited to join the Wave Press Poetry Bus Tour, along with notable poets such as Matthew Zapruder, Joshua Beckman, Eileen Myles and Arthur Sze.

In August 2009, Belieu cofounded the national feminist organization VIDA: Women In Literary Arts, notable for its influential annual survey of the rates of publication between male and female authors. This survey is known as The Count. VIDA's much publicized Count has been highly influential in addressing sweeping gender bias in contemporary American literary publishing. Belieu now serves as VIDA's co director, along with notable American poet Cate Marvin.

In August 2015, Belieu was one of 20 authors of Poets for Corbyn, an anthology of poems endorsing Jeremy Corbyn's the campaign in Labour Party leadership election.

Awards and honors