A trailblazer of the contemporary essay, Purpura meditates on existential subjects as diverse as eagles, irony, racially divided neighborhoods, and the idea of beauty.

Lia Purpura is the author of eight collections of essays, poems, and translations, most recently a collection of poems, It Shouldn¿t Have Been Beautiful (Penguin). On Looking (essays, Sarabande Books) was finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her awards include Guggenheim, NEA, and Fulbright Fellowships, as well as four Pushcart Prizes, the Associated Writing Programs Award in Nonfiction, and others.  Her work appears in The New Yorker, The New Republic, Orion, The Paris Review, The Georgia Review, Agni, and elsewhere. She is Writer in Residence at The University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and teaches in The Rainier Writing Workshop¿s MFA program. She lives in Baltimore, MD.