Terry Wolverton

Terry Wolverton is the author of eleven books of fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry. Her most recent collection, Ruin Porn, consists of poems she created using the dis•articulation process she pioneered. Her novel-in-poems, Embers, was a finalist for the PEN USA Litfest Poetry Award and the Lambda Book Award.

Insurgent Muse: life and art at the Woman’s Building, a memoir published by City Lights Books, was named one of the “Best Books of 2002” by the Los Angeles Times, and was the winner of the 2003 Publisher’s Triangle Judy Grahn Award, and a finalist for the Lambda Book Award. 

Her novel, Bailey’s Beads, was a finalist in the American Library Association’s Gay and Lesbian Book Awards for 1997; Kirkus Reviews said of it, “her ambitious debut…features…a stark but melodious prose style…confident style and affecting characters.” 

Her fiction, poetry, essays, and drama have been published in periodicals internationally, including Crab Orchard Review, Prairie Schooner, Glimmer Train Stories, The Stinging Fly, and Zyzzyva, and widely anthologized. She has also edited several successful literary compilations, including the Lambda Literary Award-winning His: brilliant new fiction by gay men and Hers: brilliant new fiction by lesbians, volumes 1, 2, and 3. 

Wolverton spent her early years working in experimental theatre and performance art. She has collaborated as a writer with Heidi Duckler Dance Theater on the site-specific performances subVersions, Under Eden, After Eden, Cover Story, Cleopatra and Catch Your Breath. Wolverton also worked with composer David Ornette Cherry to adapt Embers as a jazz opera and produced concert readings as part of the ALOUD series at the Central Library and at Grand Performances.