Helen Houghton

Helen Handley Houghton earned a BA in English and French from the University of Utah and an MA in comparative literature from the University of California, Berkeley. She continued her postgraduate studies in poetry at Stanford University, New York University, and Oxford University.

Houghton was an English teacher in both public and private schools at the upper school level for twenty years. She worked as poetry assistant to the poet laureate at the Library of Congress and has been managing editor of The Hudson Review and a contributing editor of the Pushcart Prize. An anthologist, she coedited The Music Lover’s Poetry Anthology (Persea Books, 2007); Child, A Literary Companion (Pushcart Press, 1992); and The Lover’s Quotation Book, A Literary Companion (Pushcart Press, 1986).

In addition to the Academy of American Poets, where Houghton served on the Executive Committee as Secretary and is a member of its Emeritus Circle, she is a board member of The Hudson Review and a former board member of Poets & Writers, Poets House, and the Licia Albanese-Puccini Foundation. Several years ago, she helped establish the annual poetry reading series in her mother’s name at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. Houghton is a member of the Century Association as well as the PEN Club and the Colony Club, where she served on the Board of Governors and was a chair of both the Library Committee and the Literature & Arts Committee. A trained classical pianist, an avid photographer and equestrienne, she lives in North Salem, New York.