NORDHAUS, Jean 1939-

PERSONAL: Born November 14, 1939, in Baltimore, MD; daughter of Herbert Lee (in business) and Minna (a homemaker; maiden name, Cantor) Friedberg; married Robert Riggs Nordhaus (an energy and environmental lawyer), June 27, 1964; children: Ronald Edward, Hannah Elizabeth. Ethnicity: "Jewish." Education: Barnard College, B.A., 1960; Yale University, Ph.D., 1969.

ADDRESSES: Home—623 East Capitol St. S.W., Washington, DC 20003. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: University of Maryland—College Park, assistant professor of German, 1964-65; University of the District of Columbia, assistant professor of English, 1971-73; Folger Shakespeare Library, programs coordinator for poetry, 1980-83, 1991-92, coordinator of PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, 1982-83; freelance writer and poet. Writer's Center, Bethesda, MD, presenter of poetry workshops, 1986—; also seminar and workshop presenter at George Mason University, 1984, St. Mary's College of Maryland, 1987, Bread Loaf Writer's Conference, summers, 1992-94, American University, 1995, and Taos Institute of the Arts, 1998; gives readings from her works; guest on media programs. Poetry Committee of Greater Washington, executive director, 1980-83, 1991; Washington Writers' Publishing House, president, 1989-94.

MEMBER: Poetry Society of America, Academy of American Poetry.

AWARDS, HONORS: Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, William Raney Scholar, 1984, Meralmikjen fellow, 1987; first prize, Yankee Poetry Awards, 1987; Colladay Prize, 1991, for My Life in Hiding; Consuelo Ford Award (corecipient), Poetry Society of America, 1995; Edward Stanley Award, Prairie Schooner, 1996; Kinloch Rivers Chapbook Contest winner, 1998, for A Purchase of Porcelain.

WRITINGS:

A Language of Hands (poetry chapbook), SCOP (College Park, MD), 1982.

A Bracelet of Lies (poetry), Washington Writers' Publishing House (Washington, DC), 1987.

My Life in Hiding (poetry), Quarterly Review of Literature (Princeton, NJ), 1991.

A Purchase of Porcelain (poetry chapbook), Poetry Society of South Carolina, 1998.

The Porcelain Apes of Moses Mendelssohn (poetry), Milkweed Editions (Minneapolis, MN), 2002.

Work represented in anthologies, including American Classic: Car Poems; Anthology of Magazine Verse and Yearbook of American Poetry, 1981; Natives, Tourists, and Other Mysteries, Watershed Tapes, 1985; Her Face in the Mirror: Jewish Women on Mothers and Daughters, Beacon Hill Press, 1994; and Best American Poetry 2000. Contributor of poetry, articles, essays, and reviews to periodicals, including American Poetry Review, Centennial Review, Greenfield Review, Poet Lore, Plowshares, Prairie Schooner, Washingtonian, Kansas Quarterly, Southern Poetry Review, and Yankee.

Some of Nordhaus's poems have been translated into Hebrew.

WORK IN PROGRESS: Dinner on the Fault Line, a poetry collection.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

periodicals

Booklist, March 1, 2002, Ray Olson, review of The Porcelain Apes of Moses Mendelssohn p. 1079.