Maria Terrone

Maria Terrone (May 21, Manhattan) is an American poet and writer. She is the author of two books of poetry: The Bodies We Were Loaned (2002) and A Secret Room in Fall (2006). She has been nominated three times for a Pushcart Prize and has received the Individual Artist Initiative Award from the Queens Council on the Arts. Her poetry ranges widely in subject, including themes of family, ethnicity, migration and urban environments.

Life & Career
Terrone grew up in Jackson Heights, Queens, New York, and graduated from Fordham University with a Bachelor of Arts in English. In the early years of her career, she worked as a journalist, magazine editor and in corporate communications. In 1990, she joined the City University of New York: first at Hunter College as director of public relations and, in 2003, after moving to Queens College, as Assistant Vice President for Communications. She lives in Jackson Heights with her husband, William Terrone.

Terrone's poetry has been published in many prestigious literary magazines and anthologies, such as Poetry, The Hudson Review, Ploughshares, Barrow Street, Poetry International, Notre Dame Review, Crab Orchard Review, Alfred A. Knopf Everyman's Library, Beacon Press, CavanKerry Press and The Feminist Press.

Due to her association with Queens as an author and resident, she was selected to write a narrative for The Guggenheim Museum's Transhistoria, the third edition of stillspotting nyc, a two-year multidisciplinary project that takes the Guggenheim’s Architecture and Urban Studies programming out into the streets of the city’s five boroughs.

Recognition

 * The Robert McGovern Publication Prize, Ashland University, Ashland Poetry Press, for A Secret Room in Fall (2006).
 * Elinor Benedict Prize in Poetry, Passages North
 * Allen Tate Memorial Award, Wind Magazine.
 * Willow Review Award in Poetry
 * Individual Artist Initiative Award, Queens Council on the Arts
 * Arts and Culture Award, Italian American Labor Council

Anthologies

 * “Beets” in
 * "A Bronx Story" in
 * “His Cassandra” in
 * “The Slain Wife of the Lighthouse Keeper Speaks” in
 * “Rereading the History Book: Centuries XX and XXI” in
 * “Firewalking Through Autumn” in
 * “Rapunzel Redux” in
 * 10-page section titled, “What They’ll Say in a Thousand Years,” consisting of a short essay and 11 poems: “Two Women Waiting,” “Strawberries,” “Ceres Explains the Soul of Pasta,” “Uncorking the Aged Wine,” “Rosemary,” “Salt for Uncle Charlie,” “White,” “At the Knife Skills Workshop,” “Beets,” “Blood Oranges,” and “What They’ll Say in a Thousand Years,” in

Non-Fiction

 * “At Home in the New World: a Jackson Heights Native Savors Her Neighborhood,” a performed narrative commissioned by The Guggenheim Museum for stillspotting nyc: Queens.
 * “Desire in New Mumbai,” Dispatches blog, The Common.
 * “Searching for Fergus,” The Briar Cliff Review.
 * “Feeding Your Creative Spirit,” Her Circle Ezine.