Sandra Beasley

Background

Beasley graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, earned a B.A. in English magna cum laude from the University of Virginia, and later received an MFA degree from American University. For several years she worked as an editor at The American Scholar before leaving the position to write full-time.

Beasley is the author of the poetry collections Theories of Falling (New Issues, 2008) and I Was the Jukebox, (W.W. Norton, 2010), as well as the memoir Don't Kill the Birthday Girl: Tales from an Allergic Life (Crown, 2011), which is also a cultural history of food allergies. Her poetry has been anthologized in The Best American Poetry 2010, Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, and Best New Poets 2005, as well as such journals as Poetry, The Believer, AGNI online, Blackbird, Barrelhouse, Copper Nickel, Gulf Coast, and Black Warrior Review. She was a regular contributor to the "XX Files" column for the Washington Post Magazine and more recently her prose has appeared in the Wall Street Journal and Psychology Today. She has received fellowships to the University of Mississippi (as the Summer Poet in Residence), the Sewanee Writers' Conference (Walter E. Dakin Fellowship), and Virginia Center for Creative Arts (two Cafritz Fellowships), among others honors. She serves on the Board for the Writer's Center and is also a member of the Arts Club of Washington.

Honors and awards

Published works

Translated works