Toi Derricotte’s books of poetry include I: New & Selected Poems (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2019), which was a finalist for the 2019 National Book Award in Poetry; The Undertaker's Daughter (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2011); and Tender (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1997), which won the 1998 Paterson Poetry Prize. 

 

She is also the author of a literary memoir, The Black Notebooks (W. W. Norton, 1997), which won the 1998 Annisfield-Wolf Book Award for Non-Fiction.

 

Among her other honors are: the PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry, two Pushcart Prizes, and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Rockefeller Foundation.

 

Together with Cornelius Eady, Derricotte co-founded the Cave Canem Foundation in 1996, a national poetry organization committed to cultivating the artistic and professional growth of African American poets. She served as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets from 2012 to 2017 and is professor emerita of English at the University of Pittsburgh.

 

This is Toi’s first Festival as a participating writer and she will be offering a Public Reading.