Mary Karr
Mary Karr
Trustee Professor and Jesse Truesdell Peck Professor of Literature
CONTACT
English
401 Hall of Languages
Email: mmkarr@syr.edu
Office: 315.443.9476
Social/Academic Links
Mary Karr is an award-winning poet and best-selling memoirist. She is the author of Lit, the long-awaited sequel to her critically-acclaimed and New York Times best-selling memoirs The Liars' Club and Cherry. A born raconteur she brings to her lectures and talks the same wit, irreverence, joy, and sorrow found in her poetry and prose. Karr welcomes conversation with her audience and she is known for her spirited, lively, and engaging Q&A sessions. Her poetry grants include The Whiting Writer's Award, an NEA, a Radcliffe Bunting Fellowship, and a Guggenheim. She has won prizes from Best American Poetry as well as Pushcart Prizes for both poetry and essays. Her five volumes of poetry are Tropic of Squalor (Harper, 2018), which was long-listed for the Pulitzer Prize, Sinners Welcome (HarperCollins, 2006), Viper Rum (Penguin, 1998), The Devil's Tour (New Directions, 1993), and Abacus (Carnegie Mellon, 1986). Her work appears in such magazines as The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Poetry, and Parnassus. Karr is the Jesse Truesdell Peck Professor of Literature at Syracuse University and was the weekly poetry editor for the Washington Post Book World's "Poet's Choice" column, a position canonized by Bob Hass, Ed Hirsch, and Rita Dove. She lives in Syracuse, New York, and New York City.
Memoir and Poetry
(July 2, 2018)
New book by Peck Professor Mary Karr highlights irreverent brand of poetic faith
(Oct. 27, 2015)
Acclaimed memoirist and poet to speak Nov. 4.