Mary-Alice Daniel was born near the Niger/Nigeria border, then raised in England and Tennessee. A cross-genre author, she has published work in New England Review, American Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, The Iowa Review, The Yale Review, Callaloo, and several journals and anthologies.

MASS FOR SHUT-INS, her first book of poetry, won the 117th Yale Younger Poets Prize and was released in March 2023, becoming a finalist for the California Book Awards. Selecting the manuscript, Rae Armantrout called it “Flowers of Evil for the 21st century.” 

In 2022, her tri-continental memoir, A COASTLINE IS AN IMMEASURABLE THING (Ecco/HarperCollins), was People’s Book of the Week and one of Kirkus Reviews’ Best Nonfiction Books of the Year. 

An alumna of Yale University (BA) and the University of Michigan (MFA), she received her PhD in English literature and creative writing from the University of Southern California. Thereafter, she began a postdoctoral research fellowship at Brown University and served as the inaugural Visiting Writer-in-Residence at Washington University in St. Louis. A Cave Canem Fellow, she turns to her third and fourth books of poetry and prose. She holds the 2024 Mary Routt Endowed Chair of Writing at Scripps College.

Find her on Twitter @MaryAlicePoetry and Instagram @drmaryalicedaniel

Website: www.maryalicedaniel.com

Twitter Username: @MaryAlicePoetry

Publications

• A Coastline Is an Immeasurable Thing: A Memoir Across Three Continents , HarperCollins/Ecco (November 29, 2022)
• Mass for Shut-Ins: Volume #117 of the Yale Series of Younger Poets , Yale University Press (March 21, 2023)

Awards

• California Book Awards, Finalist(2024)
• Yale Series of Younger Poets Prize (2022)
• Brunel University International African Poetry Prize Shortlist (2019)
• Indiana Review Poetry Prize, Finalist (2019)
• Boston Review “Discovery” Poetry Contest, Semi-finalist (2017)
• Black Warrior Review Poetry Contest, Runner-up (2015)
• Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry, Nimrod International Journal (2015)

Employment

• Mary Routt Endowed Chair of Writing at Scripps College (December 2023 - May 2023)

Degrees

• Bachelor of Arts in English from Yale University (May 2008)
• Master of Fine Arts in Writing/Poetry from the Helen Zell Writers' Workshop at the University of Michigan (May 2013)
• Doctoral Degree in English Literature & Creative Writing from the University of Southern California (August 2021)

Genres of Interest

Fiction, Creative nonfiction, Poetry