Tess Gallagher

Poet, essayist, novelist, and playwright, Tess Gallagher was born on July 21, 1943, in Port Angeles, Washington. She received a BA and MA from the University of Washington, where she studied creative writing with Theodore Roethke, and a MFA from the University of Iowa.

Gallagher’s first collection of poems, Instructions to the Double (Graywolf Press), won the 1976 Elliston Book Award for “best book of poetry published by a small press.” In 1984, she published the collection Willingly (Graywolf Press), which consists of poems written to and about her third husband, author Raymond Carver, who died in 1988. Other collections include Dear Ghosts (Graywolf Press, 2006); My Black Horse: New and Selected Poems (Bloodaxe Books, 1995); Owl-Spirit Dwelling (Trask House Books, 1995); and Moon Crossing Bridge (Graywolf Press, 1992).

About her work, the poet Hayden Carruth wrote, “Gallagher’s poems, beyond their delicacy of language, have a delicacy of perception, and the capacity to see oneself objectively as another person doing the things one really does, with clear affection and natural concern.”

Gallagher’s honors include a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, two National Endowment of the Arts awards, and the Maxine Cushing Gray Award.

Gallagher has taught at St. Lawrence University, Kirkland College, the University of Montana, the University of Arizona, Syracuse University, Willamette University, Bucknell University, and Whitman College.