Biography

Danzy Senna was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the middle child of three children. Her mother is the Anglo-American poet and novelist Fanny Howe

Fanny Howe

Fanny Howe is an American poet, novelist, and short story writer. She has written many novels in prose collection. Howe was awarded the 2009 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, presented annually by the Poetry Foundation to a living U.S...

. Her father is the African-American writer and journalist, Carl Senna, author of The Black Press and the Struggle for Civil Rights and The Fallacy of I.Q.

Senna earned her B.A. from Stanford University

Stanford University

The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...

 and MFA

Master of Fine Arts

A Master of Fine Arts is a graduate degree typically requiring 2–3 years of postgraduate study beyond the bachelor's degree , although the term of study will vary by country or by university. The MFA is usually awarded in visual arts, creative writing, filmmaking, dance, or theatre/performing arts...

 in creative writing

Creative writing

Creative writing is considered to be any writing, fiction, poetry, or non-fiction, that goes outside the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, and technical forms of literature. Works which fall into this category include novels, epics, short stories, and poems...

 from the University of California, Irvine

University of California, Irvine

The University of California, Irvine , founded in 1965, is one of the ten campuses of the University of California, located in Irvine, California, USA...

, where she received several creative writing awards.

Her first novel, Caucasia (1998), received the Book-of-the-Month Stephen Crane

Stephen Crane

Stephen Crane was an American novelist, short story writer, poet and journalist. Prolific throughout his short life, he wrote notable works in the Realist tradition as well as early examples of American Naturalism and Impressionism...

 Award for First Fiction. It also received the Alex Award from the American Library Association

American Library Association

The American Library Association is a non-profit organization based in the United States that promotes libraries and library education internationally. It is the oldest and largest library association in the world, with more than 62,000 members....

.

Her second novel Symptomatic (2003), is a psychological thriller narrated by a biracial young woman who is often accepted as white.

In 2009 Senna published a memoir, Where Did You Sleep Last Night?: A Personal History. Her short story collection You Are Free was published in Spring 2011.

Senna lives in Los Angeles with her husband, novelist Percival Everett

Percival Everett

Percival Everett is an American writer and Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Southern California.-Life:Everett lives in Los Angeles, California with his wife, novelist Danzy Senna and their two sons....

, and their two children.

Awards

• 2004: Fellow, New York Public Library
  New York Public Library
  The New York Public Library is the largest public library in North America and is one of the United States' most significant research libraries...
  
  's Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers
• 2002: Whiting Writers Award

Books

• You Are Free (Stories) (2011)
• Where Did You Sleep Last Night?: A Personal History (2009)
• Symptomatic (2003)
• Caucasia, also published as From Caucasia with Love (1998)

External links

• http://www.danzysenna.com
• Biography
• PBS
• Ms. Magazine
• Salon
• Interview: Coat of Many Colors