Elizabeth Treadwell
was born in Oakland, California, in 1967 and graduated from Berkeley High School. She studied with Paula Gunn Allen and Maxine Hong Kingston at UC Berkeley, where she earned her Bachelors in Native American Studies with a focus on literature in addition to a minor in Creative Writing from the English Department, through which she was awarded the Elizabeth Mills Crothers Prize for Prose.
She then lived in Los Angeles for several years, working on film sets and at other odd jobs, writing inside apartments. She returned to the Bay Area for her MFA in Creative Writing at San Francisco State, where important mentors included Myung Mi Kim, Norma Cole, and Leslie Scalapino; Treadwell's second poetry collection, LILYFOIL + 3, was published by Scalapino's legendary O Books. Upon graduation, she received the Michael Rubin Award, which included publication of her novel, The Queen of Cups.
Post-MFA, Treadwell directed Small Press Traffic Literary Arts Center in San Francisco for most of her 30s. At Small Press Traffic, her projects included the journal Traffic, revivals of plays by Djuna Barnes and Gertrude Stein, Series X commissioning essays and talks by writers including Carol Mirakove on Anxieties of Information and Alicia Cohen on the Poetics of the New Animal, and the conference Coordinates 2002: Indigenous Writing Now with featured writers including Kim TallBear, Diane Glancy, Esther Belin, Cedar Sigo, and Gerald Vizenor.
From 1992, Treadwell has also established and stewarded her own zines, independent presses, and reading series, including Stilts, Outlet, Double Lucy Books, and Lark Books & Writing Studio. Through Lark, she published the first collections of Shannon Barber and Raquel Salas Rivera, among other works. She was also a contributing editor at Delirious Hem.
Treadwell taught college for many years while homeschooling alongside her children, and now teaches high school at the Oakland School for the Arts and supports homeschooling families through Connecting Waters Charter School.
Treadwell’s most recent collection of poetry is Penny Marvel & the book of the city of selfys, her third with Susana Gardner's independent imaginarium Dusie Books. Her other collections include Chantry, Birds & Fancies, Virginia or the mud-flap girl, Posy: a charm almanack & atlas, and the forthcoming Starlit, which is her third with Charles Alexander's enduringly expansive Chax Press. Her work has been archived in numerous anthologies, including Bay Poetics, Gurlesque, and Out of Everywhere 2: Linguistically Innovative Poetry by Women in North America & the UK.
She then lived in Los Angeles for several years, working on film sets and at other odd jobs, writing inside apartments. She returned to the Bay Area for her MFA in Creative Writing at San Francisco State, where important mentors included Myung Mi Kim, Norma Cole, and Leslie Scalapino; Treadwell's second poetry collection, LILYFOIL + 3, was published by Scalapino's legendary O Books. Upon graduation, she received the Michael Rubin Award, which included publication of her novel, The Queen of Cups.
Post-MFA, Treadwell directed Small Press Traffic Literary Arts Center in San Francisco for most of her 30s. At Small Press Traffic, her projects included the journal Traffic, revivals of plays by Djuna Barnes and Gertrude Stein, Series X commissioning essays and talks by writers including Carol Mirakove on Anxieties of Information and Alicia Cohen on the Poetics of the New Animal, and the conference Coordinates 2002: Indigenous Writing Now with featured writers including Kim TallBear, Diane Glancy, Esther Belin, Cedar Sigo, and Gerald Vizenor.
From 1992, Treadwell has also established and stewarded her own zines, independent presses, and reading series, including Stilts, Outlet, Double Lucy Books, and Lark Books & Writing Studio. Through Lark, she published the first collections of Shannon Barber and Raquel Salas Rivera, among other works. She was also a contributing editor at Delirious Hem.
Treadwell taught college for many years while homeschooling alongside her children, and now teaches high school at the Oakland School for the Arts and supports homeschooling families through Connecting Waters Charter School.
Treadwell’s most recent collection of poetry is Penny Marvel & the book of the city of selfys, her third with Susana Gardner's independent imaginarium Dusie Books. Her other collections include Chantry, Birds & Fancies, Virginia or the mud-flap girl, Posy: a charm almanack & atlas, and the forthcoming Starlit, which is her third with Charles Alexander's enduringly expansive Chax Press. Her work has been archived in numerous anthologies, including Bay Poetics, Gurlesque, and Out of Everywhere 2: Linguistically Innovative Poetry by Women in North America & the UK.
