Alice Notley was born in 1945 in Bisbee, Arizona. and grew up in Needles, California. She graduated from Barnard College and then the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, with an MFA in Fiction and Poetry. She married Ted Berrigan in 1972 and lived with him until his death in 1983, upon which she became the guardian and sometimes (with Anselm and Edmund Berrigan) editor of his manuscripts. A prominent international poet, she edited the magazine CHICAGO and co-edited with second husband, British poet Douglas Oliver, Scarlet and Gare du Nord. Notley is the author of some forty or fifty volumes of poetry and prose, including The Descent of Alette, Mysteries of Small Houses, Grave of Light: New & Selected Poems 1970-2005, Coming After: Essays on Poetry, Benediction, For the Ride, and many more. She lives in Paris, France.