Glenna Luschei

Glenna Luschei (February 11, 1934 – April 16, 2025) was a poet, author, publisher, philanthropist, and poet laureate emerita of San Luis Obispo, California. She published over 35 books of poetry and launched and ran the Solo Press and its magazine Café Solo for more than 50 years. She endowed the Glenna Luschei Editorship of the Prairie Schooner literary journal in perpetuity, together with a number of prizes administered by the journal. She also co-founded and endowed the Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry.

Life Luschei was born Glenna Berry in Sioux City on February 11, 1934. She later obtained a doctorate in Hispanic languages and literature at University of California, Santa Barbara.

Literary career Luschei published more than 35 books of poetry. A selected edition of her poems, Pianos Around the Cape, was published in 1999. A Near Country: Poems About Loss (1999), co-written with her Solo Press colleagues David Oliveira and Jackson Wheeler, explores her grief for her daughter, Linda, who died of AIDS in 1994.

In 1969, Luschei launched the publishing venture Solo Press and its poetry magazine Café Solo, which she edited for more than 50 years.

In 2014, Luschei and the then editor of Prairie Schooner Kwame Dawes created the Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry.

Honours Luschei was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, a D.H. Lawrence Fellowship, an Honorary Doctorate of Literature from St. Andrew's University, and a Master of Life Award from her alma mater, the University of Nebraska. She was named Poet Laureate of San Luis Obispo City and County in 2000.