Mary Leader (born January 9, 1948) is an American poet and lawyer.

Life

Mary Leader was born on January 9, 1948, in Pawnee, Oklahoma, to Katherine Jo (Haddox) Privett, a poet, and Joe Hauser Privett, a clothing merchant.

Awards

• Emory University Creative Writing Fellowship

• National Poetry Series

• Chad Walsh Poetry Prize

• Iowa Poetry Prize

Books

• Red Signature, Graywolf Press.

• The Penultimate Suitor, University of Iowa Press.

• Beyond the Fire, Shearsman Books.

• She Lives There Still, Shearsman Books.

• The Distaff Side, Shearman Books.

Education

• Attended Oklahoma State University

• Bachelor of Arts, Oklahoma University

• Juris Doctor, Oklahoma University

• Master of Fine Arts, MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College

• Doctor of Philosophy, Brandeis University

Career

• Assistant Oklahoma Attorney General

• Legal Assistant, Oklahoma Court of Appeals

• Referee, Oklahoma Supreme Court

• Visiting Assistant Professor, Louisiana State University

• Associate Professor, University of Memphis

• Full Professor, Purdue University

External links

• Shearsman Books http://www.shearsman.com/store/Leader-Mary-c28271805

• Writer's Almanac https://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php%3Fdate=1999%252F04%252F05.html

• "Girl at Sewing Machine", Emory University http://english.emory.edu/classes/paintings&poems/sewing.html

• "For the Love Gerald Finzi", Beloit Poetry Journal https://www.bpj.org/works/v66n3-4p037-for-the-love-of-gerald-finzi-leader

• Conversation between Mary Leader and Mark Yakich featuring their mentor-mentee collaboration, 12 x 12: Conversations in 21st-Century Poetry and Poetics (Eds. Christina Mengert and Joshua Marie Wilkinson)