Mary Elizabeth Parker is an American poet. She is best known for her collection, The Sex Girl (Urthona Press), which won the Urthona Poetry Prize in 1999. Her poetry has been widely anthologized in such journals as Gettysburg Review, New Letters, Arts & Letters

Arts & Letters

Arts & Letters is a literary journal based at Georgia College and State University in Milledgeville, Georgia.The journal is known for its in depth interviews with major American writers such as John Guare, Tina Howe, Bobbie Ann Mason, and Charles Simic. Notable contributors to the journal have...

, Greensboro Review, Madison Review and Confrontation. Her poetry

Poetry

Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...

 and essays have previously been nominated for the Pushcart Prize

Pushcart Prize

The Pushcart Prize is an American literary prize by Pushcart Press that honors the best "poetry, short fiction, essays or literary whatnot" published in the small presses over the previous year. Magazine and small book press editors are invited to nominate up to 6 works they have featured....

.

Parker is also the founder of the Dana Award

Dana Award

The Dana Award is a literary award presented in short fiction, poetry and the novel. It was founded in 1996 by literature professor and poet Mary Elizabeth Parker with the financial backing of Michael Dana. The competition is currently based in Greensboro, North Carolina...

s in fiction and poetry.

She holds an MFA in creative writing and a Ph. D. in literature from the University of North Carolina, Greensboro.

Chapbooks

• That Stumbling Ritual (Coraddi Press, University of North Carolina-Greensboro, 1980)
• Breathing in a Foreign Country (winner of the 1993 Kinloch Rivers Memorial Competition)