Jan Beatty’s eighth book, Dragstripping, was published in fall, 2024 by the University of Pittsburgh Press. The Body Wars was published in 2020, also by the University of Pittsburgh Press. She is the winner of the Red Hen Nonfiction Award for her memoir, American Bastard, 2021. Books include Jackknife: New and Collected Poems (2018 Paterson Prize) named by Sandra Cisneros on LitHub as her favorite book of 2019. Her fourth book, The Switching/Yard, was named by Library Journal as one of ...30 New Books That Will Help You Rediscover Poetry. The Huffington Post called her one of ten “advanced women poets for required reading.” Her poem, “Shooter” was featured in a paper delivered in Paris by scholar Mary Kate Azcuy: “Jan Beatty’s ‘Shooter,’ A Controversy For Feminist & Gender Politics.” Books include Red Sugar, Boneshaker, and Mad River, winner of the Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize, all published by University of Pittsburgh Press. Awards include the Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry, Discovery/The Nation Prize finalist, $10,000 Artist Grant from The Pittsburgh Foundation, and a $15,000 Creative Achievement Award in Literature, Heinz Foundation. Beatty's work has been published in the The Atlantic, The New York Times Sunday Magazine, Poetry, BuzzFeed, North American Review, and Best American Poetry, and she was featured at the Split This Rock Poetry Festival and the Geraldine R. Dodge Festival. For many years, Beatty worked as a waitress, an abortion counselor, and in maximum security prisons. For twenty-five years, she hosted and produced Prosody, a public radio show on NPR-affiliate WYEP-FM featuring the work of national writers. She is faculty emerita at Carlow University where she directed the MFA program, Creative Writing, and the Madwomen in the Attic workshops.
