Lucia Perillo, American poet and novelist, Died at 58

  Writer

Lucia Maria Perillo was born on September 30, 1958, in Manhattan and died on October 16, 2016.

She was an American poet.

During 2000, she was recognized with a “genius grant” as part of the MacArthur Fellows Program.

She grew up in Irvington, in the suburbs of New York City in the 1960s.

She graduated from the McGill University in Montreal in the year 1979 with a major in wildlife management and subsequently worked for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Lucia Perillo completed her M.A. in English at Syracuse University, while working seasonally at Mount Rainier National Park, and moved to Olympia, Washington in 1987, where she taught at Saint Martin’s College.

For some time in the 1990s, she taught in the creative writing program at Southern Illinois University.

Lucia Perillo’s work has appeared in many magazines such as The New Yorker,The Atlantic and The Kenyon Review among others.

She was a traditional poet of mostly free-verse personal reflection, she has written extensively about living with Multiple Sclerosis in her poems and essays.

Lucia Perillo most recent book of poetry (Copper Canyon Press, 2012).

During 2012 she also published a collection of short fiction, Happiness is a Chemical in the Brain, which was shortlisted for the 2013 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize.

Lucia died in Olympia, Washington.

Lucia Perillo passed away at 58 years old.