Erin Murphy is the author or editor of thirteen books, including Human Resources, forthcoming from Salmon Poetry; Fluent in Blue (April 2024); Taxonomies (2022), a collection of demi-sonnets, a form she devised; and Assisted Living (2018), poems about caregiving. In addition, her chapbooks include Fields of Ache, a collection of centos (2022). Her most recent co-edited anthologies are Bodies of Truth, a collection of narrative medicine essays (University of Nebraska Press), and Creating Nonfiction (SUNY Press), both of which won Gold Medals in the Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards.
Her individual poems and creative nonfiction essays have appeared in such journals as Ecotone, Women’s Studies Quarterly, Rattle, The Georgia Review, North American Review, The Best of Brevity, Best Microfictions 2024, and anthologies from Random House, Bloomsbury, and Bedford/St. Martin’s. Her awards include the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Prize, the Rattle Poetry Prize Readers’ Choice Award, the Foley Poetry Award, the National Writers’ Union Poetry Award judged by Donald Hall, a Best of the Net award judged by Patricia Smith, and The Normal School Poetry Prize judged by Nick Flynn.
Murphy received her Master of Fine Arts degree in English from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, under the direction of James Tate. She is Professor of English at the Pennsylvania State University, Altoona College, where she has received the Athleen J. Stere Teaching Award, the Grace D. Long Faculty Excellence Award, and the university-wide Alumni Award for Excellence in Teaching. She serves as the Poetry Editor of The Summerset Review and Poet Laureate of Blair County, Pennsylvania. During 2023-2025, she is a Mellon Academic Leadership Fellow.