Background
Born in Toledo, Ohio, Evans was 10 years old when her mother died, and she was subsequently encouraged in her writing by her father, as she recalls in her essay "My Father"s Passage" (1984).
Born in Toledo, Ohio, Evans was 10 years old when her mother died, and she was subsequently encouraged in her writing by her father, as she recalls in her essay "My Father"s Passage" (1984).
She attended local public schools before going on to the University of Toledo, where she majored in fashion design in 1939, though left without a degree.
In 1984 she edited one of the first critical books devoted to the work of Black women writers. She began a series of teaching appointments in American universities in 1969. During 1969-1970, she served as writer in residence at Indiana University-Purdue, where she taught courses in African-American Literature.
The next year, she accepted a position as writer in residence at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana.
From 1968 to 1973, she produced, wrote and directed the television program The Black Experience for WTTV in Indianapolis. She received an honorary degree from Marian College in 1975.
Evans continued her teaching career at Purdue (1978-1980), at Washington University in Saint Louis (1980), at Cornell University (1981-1985), and the State University of New York at Albany (1985-1986). Mari Evans is an activist for prison reform, and is against corporal punishment.
She works with theater groups and local community organizations.
John Hay Whitney Fellow, 1965-1966 Woodrow Wilson Foundation Grant, 1968 Indiana University Writers Conference Award, 1970 First Annual Poetry Award, Black Academy of Arts and Letters, 1970 Copeland Fellow, Amherst College, 1980 National Endowment for the Arts grant, 1981-1982 Featured on Ugandan postage stamp, 1997 Nominated for a Grammy Award for her liner notes to The Long Road Back To Freedom: An Anthology of Black Music, 2002 African American Legacy Project of Northwest Ohio Legend Honoree 2007.
(A proud flying fish named Jim is rescued from a tree by O...)
(Nursery rhymes, with their simple words and sing-song rhy...)
