Colleen McElroy

b. 1935 in St. Louis to Ruth Celeste and Purcia Purcell Rawls

mother re-married to Jesse Dalton Johnson

full name Colleen Johnson McElroy

B.A. Kansas City

studied in the speech and hearing program at the University of Pittsburgh

was director of Speech and Hearing Services at Western Washington University

Ph.D. 1973 in ethnolinguistic patterns of dialect differences and oral traditions from the University of Washington

dissertation title: Semantic differentiation as a result of code switching.

professor of English and the first African American woman to be promoted to full professor at the University of Washington

won a Fulbright to Madagascar

married, had two children, and was divorced

married poet David McElroy and began writing seriously herself in her mid-thirties


Colleen McElroy

Colleen McElroy in New Bones

Colleen McElroy in Ploughshares


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