MEG KEARNEY was born in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, and immediately placed into foster care under the auspices of The New York Foundling. At the age of five months, she was adopted and brought to live with her new parents and two older (also adopted) siblings in LaGrange, a town located in New York’s Hudson Valley.
Kearney writes poetry for both adults and young adults, including The Secret of Me and The Girl in the Mirror, the first two novels in the Lizzie McLane trilogy. In 2010, Home By Now, her second collection of poems for adults, won the PEN New England L.L. Winship Award and was a finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize and Foreword Magazine’s Book of the Year. Among her other books are An Unkindness of Ravens (poetry for adults) and Trouper (a critically acclaimed picture book for children, illustrated by E. B. Lewis). Kearney’s poems—and occasionally a story and an essay—have appeared in myriad literary journals and anthologies, and have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize four times. Garrison Keillor has read her poems on his national radio show, “The Writer’s Almanac,” and included her work in his anthology, Good Poems: American Places. Former U.S. poet laureate Ted Kooser also selected one of her poems for his “American Life in Poetry” column.
Before becoming founding director of the Solstice Low-Residency Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing Program at Pine Manor College in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, Kearney was Associate Director of the National Book Foundation, sponsor of the National Book Awards, in New York City. She also taught poetry at The New School University (New York). A long time ago, she conducted power-plant tours for students and adults as part of her job at an electric utility in New York’s Hudson Valley.
Kearney frequently visits schools and college classrooms nationwide, where she reads her poetry and discusses craft. She often is a speaker at literary and adoption conferences as well. She lives in New Hampshire with her husband; their three-legged dog, Trouper; their three-legged cat, Hopkins; and—oddly—their four-legged cat named Magpie. Visit her website: www.megkearney.com.