Diana Farnham O'Hehir is a poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

 and writer of prose from northern California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

. She was born in Berkeley

Berkeley, California

Berkeley is a city on the east shore of the San Francisco Bay in Northern California, United States. Its neighbors to the south are the cities of Oakland and Emeryville. To the north is the city of Albany and the unincorporated community of Kensington...

 in 1929. She taught from 1961 to 1992 at Mills College

Mills College

Mills College is an independent liberal arts women's college founded in 1852 that offers bachelor's degrees to women and graduate degrees and certificates to women and men. Located in Oakland, California, Mills was the first women's college west of the Rockies. The institution was initially founded...

 in Oakland

Oakland, California

Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...

 where she is Aurelia Henry Reinhardt Professor Emerita of American Literature. She lives in San Francisco with her husband, writer Mel Fiske. Their reunion, after 35 years of divorce, and her subsequent remarriage is recounted in a 1999 essay in salon.com

Salon.com

Salon.com, part of Salon Media Group , often just called Salon, is an online liberal magazine, with content updated each weekday. Salon was founded by David Talbot and launched on November 20, 1995. It was the internet's first online-only commercial publication. The magazine focuses on U.S...

.

Though not very prolific, her output of three volumes of poetry and four novels are highly regarded.

Her two most recent novels, Murder Never Forgets (2005) and Erased from Memory (2006) are mystery novels featuring a young woman and her Alzheimers-afflicted father

Works

• Summoned (poetry), 1976
• The Power to Change Geography (poetry), 1979
• I Wish This War Were Over (novel), 1984
• Home Free (poetry), 1988
• The Bride Who Ran Away (novel), 1988
• Mothersongs: Poems For, By, and About Mothers (anthology edited with Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar
  Susan Gubar
  Dr. Susan D. Gubar is an American academic and Distinguished Professor of English and Women's Studies at Indiana University. She is co-author with Dr. Sandra M. Gilbert of the standard feminist text, The Madwoman in the Attic and a trilogy on women's writing in the twentieth century.Her book...
  
  ), 1995
• Spells For Not Dying Again (poetry), 1996
• Murder Never Forgets (novel), 2005
• Erased from Memory (novel), 2006
• Dark Aura (novel), 2008

Awards

• Summoned: Devins Award from the University of Missouri Press, 1976.
• I Wish This War Were Over, was short-listed for the Pulitzer Prize
  Pulitzer Prize
  The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
  
  .
• Guggenheim Fellowship
  Guggenheim Fellowship
  Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...
  
  in 1986.
• Spells For Not Dying Again Northern California Book Award for poetry, 1997