Alice Friman


Alice Friman is an American poet. She has taught at a number of universities and helped to found the Indiana Writers' Center. She is Professor Emerita at the University of Indianapolis, and poet-in-residence at Georgia College & State University. She hosts a poetry podcast, "Ask Alice".

Biography

Friman was born and raised in New York City. She married Elmer Friman in 1955, followed his job to Dayton, Ohio, in 1956, and in 1960 moved to Indianapolis, Indiana. Their children are H. Richard Friman, Paul Lawrence Friman, and Lillian Elaine Wilson. They divorced in 1975 and she married Marshall Bruce Gentry in 1989.

Career

Friman is a graduate of Brooklyn College, holds a master's degree from Butler University, and received an honorary doctorate from the University of Indianapolis. She started writing poetry seriously in her forties and is one of the founders of the Indiana Writers' Center. Friman taught English and creative writing at the University of Indianapolis from 1971 to 1993 and has been Professor Emerita of English and Creative Writing since 1993. She was named "Teacher of the Year" at U of I in 1993. She also taught at Randolph College, Ball State University, Indiana State University, IUPUI, and Curtin University in Perth, Australia. In 2003 she moved to Milledgeville, Georgia, where she is poet-in-residence in the MFA program at Georgia College & State University. Friman also hosts a poetry podcast titled Ask Alice, which is sponsored by the Georgia College MFA program and can be seen on YouTube.

Publications

Friman has published six full-length collections of poetry: The View from Saturn, Vinculum, The Book of the Rotten Daughter, Zoo, Inverted Fire, and Reporting from Corinth. She has also authored several chapbooks of poetry: Driving for Jimmy Wonderland, Insomniac Heart, Song to My Sister, and A Question of Innocence. Her poetry has been included in numerous anthologies, including Pushcart Prize XXXVI and The Best American Poetry 2009. Essays by Friman include “Truth: The Road or the Rug” ; “Letting Go” ; “The Office” ; “Inking In the Myth”.

Awards and honors

Friman's many awards include the Pushcart Prize ; Ekphrasis Prize for Poetry ; the Georgia Writers' Association's Georgia Author of the Year Award for Poetry ; James Boatwright III Prize for Poetry, Shenandoah ; Creative Renewal Fellowship, Arts Council of Indianapolis ; Individual Artist Fellowship, Indiana Arts Commission ; Poetry Society of America's Lucille Medwick Memorial Award, Cecil Hemley Memorial Award, and Consuelo Ford Award ; New England Poetry Club's Gretchen Warren Award and Erika Mumford Prize ; and Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature's Midwest Poetry Award. She has been a Fellow at numerous literary colonies and centers including MacDowell, Yaddo, Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest, VCCA, Millay, Leighton, Carson McCullers Center for Writers and Musicians, and Georgia Review/Bowers House Literary Center.

Critical opinion

Reviewers have expressed appreciation of Friman's poetry in publications including Poetry Daily, Image Journal, KCUR, Hollins Critic, and The Prairie Schooner.