Paley, Grace, 1922-2007

Grace Paley; December 11, 1922, The Bronx, New York City - August 22, 2007, Thetford, Vermont; attended Hunter College, then, briefly The New School, but never received a degree; studied with W. H. Auden at the New School for Social Research; June 20, 1942, Grace Goodside married cinematographer Jess Paley, and had two children, Nora (1949-) and Danny (1951-); 1972 Paley married fellow poet (and author of the Nghsi-Altai series) Robert Nichols; taught at Sarah Lawrence College; 1980, she was elected to the National Academy of Arts and Letters and in 1989, Governor Mario Cuomo made her the first official New York State Writer; e Vermont State Poet Laureate from March 5, 2003 until July 25, 2007; taught at Columbia University, Syracuse University and the City College of New York; known for pacifism and for political activism; joined the War Resisters League during Vietnam War; published her first collection, The Little Disturbances of Man (1959) with Doubleday; 1961 Guggenheim Fellowship for Fiction, the Edith Wharton Award (1983), the Rea Award for the Short Story (1993), the Vermont Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts (1993), PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction (1994), and the Jewish Cultural Achievement Award for Literary Arts (1994)