Diane Middlebrook

Diane Helen Middlebrook ( Wood; April 16, 1939 – December 15, 2007) was an American biographer, poet, and teacher. She taught feminist studies for many years at Stanford University. She wrote critically acclaimed biographies of poets Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath (along with Plath's husband Ted Hughes), and jazz musician Billy Tipton.

Early life Middlebrook was born Diane Helen Wood in Pocatello, Idaho, the oldest of three daughters. Her parents were teenagers when she was born. In 1945, when Diane was five, the family moved to Spokane, Washington. She graduated from North Central High School in 1957.

Education and teaching career Middlebrook expressed her desire to become a published poet and writer, but received no encouragement from her family. She paid her own way through college.

Middlebrook began her teaching career at Stanford as an assistant professor in 1966 and gradually worked her way up to university professor and associate dean positions.

She published many articles on Sexton, Plath, Hughes, and other writers, such as Robert Lowell and Philip Larkin. She also reviewed a wide variety of books on subjects ranging from Helen Keller to the development of modern clothing.

At the time of her death, Middlebrook was preparing a biography of the Roman poet Ovid, to be published in 2008. The completed parts of the biography were eventually published as Young Ovid: A Life Recreated in 2015.

Middlebrook was noted for her openness and honest, sometimes "brutal" biographical writing.

Biographies Walt Whitman and Wallace Stevens (1974) Anne Sexton, A Biography (1991), Houghton Mifflin Company Suits Me: The Double Life of Billy Tipton (1998) Her Husband: Ted Hughes & Sylvia Plath, a Marriage (2003), Viking Adult

Poetry

Worlds Into Words: Understanding Modern Poems (1980) Coming to Light: American Women Poets in the 20th Century (1985) Selected Poems of Anne Sexton (1988) Gin Considered as a Demon (1983) Women Writing Poetry in America: Poetry Broadsides by California Women Printers (editor) (1982)

Awards Anne Sexton: A Biography, was a finalist for the National Book Award and for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Djerassi stated that she continued working until the month before her death.