Eve Merriam, 1916-1992

See Eve Merriam collection (78-M146--78-M151)

Eve Merriam, writer, was born in Philadelphia in 1916. EM took her A.B. at the University of Pennyslvania, continuing her education at the University of Wisconsin and Columbia University. She married Martin Philip Michel; they had two sons, Guy Michel and Dee Michel.

Primarily a poet, EM is also a playwright, teacher, and lecturer, particularly on the subjects of education, the status of women, and poetry. EM has written satire, fiction, children's books, biographies (including one of Emma Lazarus), and the precedent-setting After Nora Slammed the Door, one of the early works of the current wave of feminist writing. She has read her poems on radio, television, in films, and in the theatre; and her writings have appeared in periodicals abroad and in The New York Times, the Nation, the New Republic, and the Ladies' Home Journal, as well as in many anthologies. Earlier in her career, EM was a copy writer, fashion editor of Glamour, and conducted a weekly radio show.

EM's first book of verse, Family Circle, was awarded the Yale Younger Poets' Prize; others are the Nixon Poems , The Double Bed, and The Inner City Mother Goose, the last with her help made into a Broadway musical. EM has won the Colliers Star Fiction Award, a CBS grant to write poetic drama for television, and in 1977 the Obie Award.