Allison Funk was born in Princeton, New Jersey, and grew up in Delaware. She earned her B.A from Ohio Wesleyan University and an M.F.A from Columbia University. Alice James Books published her first collection of poems, Forms of Conversion, in 1986. Living at the Epicenter, her second book, won the 1995 Samuel French Morse Prize as well as the Society of Midland Authors Poetry Prize. Other books include The Knot Garden (Sheep Meadow Press, 2002); The Tumbling Box (C&R Press, 2009); and Wonder Rooms, issued by Free Verse Editions (Parlor Press, 2015).
Funk's honors include a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, the George Kent Prize from Poetry magazine, and the Celia B. Wagner Award from the Poetry Society of America. She has been granted residencies at Yaddo, MacDowell, the Ragdale Foundation, the Hawthornden Castle International Writers Retreat in Scotland, and the Dora Maar House in France. Her work has been anthologized widely, including in The Best American Poetry and When She Named Fire: An Anthology of Contemporary Poetry by American Women.
Funk is a Distinguished Professor of English at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.
