Colleen McElroy
(b. 1935)

Writers are often encouraged to "write what they know." For poet and short story writer Colleen McElroy that phrase covers a tremendous range of experience. From a young age, McElroy has lived in many different places and traveled extensively. After spending time in places as diverse as St. Louis, Wyoming, Munich, Kansas City, and Pittsburgh during her youth and college years, she eventually settled in Washington State. Armed with a graduate degree in neurological and language learning patterns, McElroy took a position as Director of Speech and Hearing Services at Western Washington University.

McElroy's interest in linguistics, oral traditions, dialects, and world cultures led to a doctoral degree from the University of Washington. She started teaching English at the school, ultimately becoming the first African American woman to receive a full professorship at the University of Washington.

Meanwhile, McElroy's extensive global travels and interest in other cultures sparked an interest in writing. Encouraged by poets Richard Hugo and Denise Levertov, she began to write poetry. The rainy, lush landscape of the Northwest was present throughout many of these early poems, as were her interest in linguistics and cultural traditions. Her first book The Mule Done Long Since Gone (1973) led to several volumes of poetry, which were eventually collected in What Madness Brought Me Here (1990).

In interviews, McElroy states that she feels compelled to write. "You are hungry for something and you just can't find it. It's a gnawing presence that, if you don't write, says to you 'You didn't eat today.'" This compulsion to write has produced short stories, travel memoirs, and television scripts in addition to poetry. Ultimately, McElroy finds that the same excitement that draws her to traveling, draws to writing: "Each piece of writing is a new port of call, full of surprises and disappointments, pleasures, and intrigue."

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