Shelley Puhak

Shelley Puhak is an American poet and writer. She was Eichner Professor of Creative Writing at Notre Dame of Maryland University. She won the Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize for her poetry collection Guinevere in Baltimore. She was a National Poetry Series winner for her poetry collection Harbinger She is also the author of The Dark Queens: The Bloody Rivalry That Forged the Medieval World, a double biography.

Life Puhak was born in Washington, D.C. and graduated from University of Delaware with an MA, and from the University of New Orleans with an MFA.

Her work has appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Kenyon Review, Missouri Review, Southeast Review, and Superstition Review.

She is married; she and her husband live in Catonsville.

Works The Blood Countess: Murder, Betrayal, and the Making of a Monster, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2026, The Dark Queens: The Bloody Rivalry That Forged the Medieval World, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2022, Guinevere in Baltimore, Waywiser Press, 2014, Stalin in Aruba, Black Lawrence Press, 2010,