Natural Defenses

Susan Terris was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri. She has a B. A. degree in English literature from Wellesley College and an M. A. from San Francisco State University. Ms. Terris has written poetry since she was an undergraduate in classes being taught by Richard Wilbur, David Ferry, and Philip Booth. Her writing career, however, began in the field of children's fiction. She had 21 books published by New York houses such as Doubleday, Macmillan, Scholastic, and Farrar, Straus & Giroux. During the same period, she also wrote poetry and had poems published from time to time. About 20 years ago, Ms. Terris began to find herself consumed by the writing of poetry. Since then she's written and published only poetry.