Nikky Finney has been writing for as long as she has memory. She was born in Conway, South Carolina, in 1957. She was raised in several towns all across the state. Choosing to remain in her beloved South, she attended Talladega College in Alabama.
Her first book of poems, On Wings of Gauze (William Morrow), was published in 1985. A second book, Rice (Sister Vision, Black Women and Women of Color Press), came out in 1995. She has also published in numerous journals and anthologies.
Finney currently works and writes in Lexington, Kentucky, where she is a founding member of the Affrilachian Poets and associate professor of creative writing at the University of Kentucky.