Born: April 20, 1939 (Belington, WV)
Died: February 5, 2012 (Barbour County, WV)
Education:
- B.A. West Virginia Wesleyan College
- M.A. West Virginia University
- Ph.D. University of Utah
Served:
- Director of the Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing Program 2010-2012
Taught:
- Instructor in English 1969-1971
- Associate Professor of English 1990-2000
- Professor of English, Emerita 2000-2012
Notes:
- Poetry Fellowship from the National Endowmant for the Arts, 1985
- Poet Laureate for the State of West Virginia 1994-2012
- Utah Arts Council Prize Award in Fiction
- The Breadloaf Scholarship
- Cincinnati Review Annual Poetry Prize
- Kentucky Foundation for Women Award
- Appalachian Melon Fellowship
- West Virginia Commission on the Arts Poet-in-Residence
- Co-founder and editor of Trellis
- Published:
- 1976 The Girl with the Stone in Her Lap
- 1984 The Wasps at the Blue Hexagons
- 1988 Quick Fire and Slow Fire
- 1989 Six O’Clock Mine Report
- 2004 Vivid Companion
- 2009 Unthinkable: Selected Poems 1976-2004
- 2013 (Posthumously) Have You Had Enough Darkness Yet? No, I Haven’t Had Enough Darkness
Sources:
- Catalog
- e-WV Irene McKinney
- Murmurmontis
- Obituary from Talbott Funeral Home
- Pharos
- Sundial
- West Virginia Public Broadcasting, A Conversation with Irene McKinney (2005). (28:30)
PLM 8/15/18