Eileen Myles was born in Boston in 1949, attended catholic schools in Arlington, Mass. and graduated from UMass (Boston) in 1971. She came to New York in 1974 to be a poet. Since then she’s become widely known in writing circles, art circles, queer circles and beyond as one of the most restless interpreters of the American vernacular, moving fluidly from the poetry to writing novels, essays and plays, art reviews, performances and libretti, and perhaps most notably as someone “with an uncanny knack” as John Ashbery put it, “for making people feel uncomfortable and awake…chanting softly and beautifully the harsh if humorous realities that combine to make whatever life a poet can piece together today.” The Importance of Being Iceland/travel esssays in art, her first collection of essays and talks came out in July from Semiotex(e)/MIT. Myles first became known to many people for her openly female write-in campaign for President of the United States in 1991-92. Luckily, she did not win. Myles received her poetic education at The Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church in 1975-77 where she participated in workshops lead by Alice Notley, Ted Berrigan and others. In 1977 and 79 she published issues of dodgems, a poetry magazine which presented a collision of New York School, Language Poetry, performance texts and other likely aesthetics of the time. She co-edited the feminist anthology Ladies Museum (w Timmons, Kraut and Notley), worked as assistant to poet James Schuyler in 1979, took the grey rabbit out to Naropa’s Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics for the first time that year and back in New York was a member of the Lost Texans Collective (w Nauen & McKay) which produced Joan of Arc a spiritual entertainment and Patriarchy, a play. Following these were solo performances: Leaving New York (1989), Life (a performance by Eileen Myles) (1990) and Summer in Russia (1995) at PS 122, the Judson Church, Franklin Furnace and the WOW Café and her plays Feeling Blue Parts 1, 2, & 3; Modern Art; and Our Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, which she wrote for Alina Troyano, were all produced at PS122. Her books include Sorry, Tree (poetry) 2007, Tow w/ artist Larry C. Collins (2005), Skies (2001), on my way (2001), Cool for You (novel, 2000), School of Fish (1997), Maxfield Parrish (1995), Not Me (1991), and Chelsea Girls  (stories, 1994). In 1995, with Liz Kotz, she edited The New Fuck You/adventures in Lesbian Reading (Semiotext(e)). From 1984 through 1986 Eileen Myles was Artistic Director of St. Mark's Poetry Project. In 2004 she wrote the libretto for the opera, Hell, composed  by Michael Webster and performed on both coasts in 2004 and in New York in 2006. She’s appeared in numerous independent films by Cecilia Dougherty, Nam June Paik, Leslie Singer, Julie Zando, Jennifer Montgomery and has made a few:  22, Bread & Water,  Dumb Whore Palm, and Lemon Tree. Eileen will be touring the Iceland book widely in this fall in North America, Iceland and Europe. She’s toured with Sister Spit in 1997 and in 2007 and looks forward to more. She is a Professor Emeritus of writing & Literature at UC San Diego where she taught from 2002 to 2007.  In Spring 2010 she will be the Hugo Writer at U. of Montana in Missoula. She contributes to a wide number of publications including Parkett, The Believer, Vice, Cabinet, The Nation, Art Forum, TimeOut, Book Forum and Another Magazine. She received an Andy Warhol/Creative Capital art writers’ grant for “Iceland.” She will be blogging bi-weekly on the Harriet site for the Poetry Foundation till the end of September. She lives in New York.

The Importance of Being Iceland her first collection of essays (for which she received a Warhol/Creative Capital art writing grant) is just out from Semiotext(e)/MIT.