Minnie Bruce Pratt

Minnie Bruce Pratt (b. September 12, 1946 in Selma, Alabama) is an U.S. educator, activist, and award-winning poet, essayist, and theorist. Pratt was born in Selma, Alabama, grew up in Centreville, Alabama and graduated with an honors B.A. from the University of Alabama (1968) and a Ph.D. in English literature from the University of North Carolina (1979). She is a Professor of Writing and Women’s Studies at Syracuse University where she was invited to help develop the university’s first Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender Study Program. She emerged out of the women’s liberation movement in the 1970s and 1980s and has written extensively about race, class, gender and sexual theory. Pratt, along with lesbian writers Chrystos and Audre Lorde, received a Lillian Hellman-Dashiell Hammett award from the Fund for Free Expression to writers "who have been victimized by political persecution." Pratt, Chrystos and Lorde were chosen because their experience as "a target of right-wing and fundamentalist forces during the recent attacks on the National Endowment for the Arts."^[1] Her political affiliations include the International Action Center, the National Women's Fightback Network, and the National Writers Union. She is a contributing editor to Workers World newspaper. Pratt's partner is author and activist Leslie Feinberg.

Published works

• The Sound Of One Fork. Durham, NC: Night Heron Press. 1981.  ASIN: B000HF76DW
• Yours In Struggle: Three Feminist Perspectives On Anti-Semitism And Racism. New York: Long Haul Press. 1984. ISBN 0-932379-53-2.  Chosen for the 100 Best Lesbian and Gay Nonfiction Books, by the Publishing Triangle, 2004.
• Crime Against Nature. Ithaca, NY.: Firebrand Books. 1990. ISBN 0932379737.  American Library Association Gay and Lesbian Book Award in Literature 1991, The Lamont Poetry Selection of The Academy of American Poets, 1989.
• Rebellion: Essays 1980-1991. Ithaca, NY.: Firebrand Books. 1991. ISBN 1563410060. 
• We Say We Love Each Other. San Francisco: Spinster's ink books/Aunt Lute Books. 1985. ISBN 1563410230. 
• S/HE. Ithaca, NY: Firebrand Books. 1995. ISBN 155583888X. 
• Walking Back Up Depot Street: Poems. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. 1999. ISBN 0822940965.  Best Gay and Lesbian Book of the Year by ForeWord: Magazine of Independent Bookstores and Booksellers, 2000.
• The Money Machine: Selected Poems. New York: Belladonna* Books. 2003.  ASIN: B0006S92LE
• The Dirt She Ate: Selected and New Poems. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. 2003. ISBN 0822958260.  Chosen Lambda Literary Award in Lesbian Poetry, 2003.

Honors and awards

• 2005. Fellowship in Poetry, New Jersey State Council on the Arts
• 2003. Lambda Literary Award for The Dirt She Ate. 
• 2002. The Lucille Medwick Memorial Award, Poetry Society of America, \"Picking Up a Job Application\"
• 1999. Independent Booksellers Award for Walking Back Up Depot Street. 
• 1991. American Library Association Gay and Lesbian Book Award in Literature for Crime Against Nature. 
• 1990. The Harriete Simpson Arnow Prize for Poetry, from The American Voice
• 1990. Creative Writing Fellowship in Poetry, from The National Endowment for the Arts
• 1989. The Lamont Poetry Selection of The Academy of American Poets for Crime Against Nature. 

References

External links

• Official site
• Page at Syracuse University
• Pratt, Minnie Bruce. "When I Say 'Steal,' Who Do You Think Of?", Southern Spaces, 21 July 2004.
• Pratt, Minnie Bruce. "No Place." Southern Spaces, July 27, 2004, http://southernspaces.org/2004/no-place.