Diane Ackerman was born in Waukegan, Illinois. She received her B.A. from Pennsylvania State University and an M.F.A. and PhD. from Cornell University. Her poetry has been published in many leading literary journals, and in the books The Planets: A Cosmic Pastoral (1976), Wife of Light (1978), Lady Faustus (1983), Reverse Thunder: A Dramatic Poem (1988), and Jaguar of Sweet Laughter: New and Selected Poems (1991).
Her works of nonfiction include, most recently, A Natural History of Love (1994); The Moon By Whalelight and Other Adventures Among Bats, Crocodilians, Penguins, and Whales (1991); A Natural History of the Senses (1990); and On Extended Wings (1985), a memoir of flying. She is at work on a second book of nature writings, The Rarest of the Rare.
Ms. Ackerman has received the Academy of American Poets’ Lavan Award, and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Rockefeller Foundation, among other recognitions. She has taught at several universities, including Columbia and Cornell, and she is currently a staff writer for The New Yorker.