Mary Biddinger

Mary Biddinger (born May 14, 1974, in Fremont, California) is an American writer and academic.

Biography Mary Biddinger received a B.A. in English from the University of Michigan. She holds an MFA in Poetry from Bowling Green State University and a Ph.D. in English from the Program for Writers at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Biddinger is the author of numerous books, most recently the novella-in-flash The Girl with the Black Lipstick (2025) , and the poetry collection Department of Elegy (2022) , both with Black Lawrence Press. Biddinger is the recipient of a 2015 National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship in Poetry and the 2019 Mid-Career Cleveland Arts Prize for Literature.

Biddinger is a professor in the Department of English at the University of Akron, and has served as Director of the NEOMFA: Northeast Ohio Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program. She teaches courses in creative writing and literature.

Awards Mid-Career Cleveland Arts Prize for Literature (2019) National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship in Poetry (2015) Buchtel College of Arts and Sciences Service Award (2008) Three Ohio Arts Council Individual Creativity Excellence Awards (2007, 2010, 2018) Illinois Arts Council Literary Award (2005)

Works The Girl with the Black Lipstick, 2025, Black Lawrence Press A Mollusk Without a Shell: Essays on Self-Care for Writers (with Julie Brooks Barbour), 2024, University of Akron Press Department of Elegy, 2022, Black Lawrence Press Partial Genius, 2019, Black Lawrence Press Small Enterprise, 2015, Black Lawrence Press A Sunny Place with Adequate Water, 2014, Black Lawrence Press O Holy Insurgency, 2013, Black Lawrence Press Prairie Fever, 2007, Steel Toe Books