Biography

Photo by Ruth McCarthy

Terry Wolverton was born August 23, 1954 in Cocoa Beach, Florida. When she was just a year old, she left Florida with her mother and moved to Detroit, where she grew up. Her grandmother, Elsba Mae Miller, who had been a teacher, used to recite poetry to her, and Terry credits this with her love of language. From an early age Terry was interested in the arts, especially writing, music, and drama, and she graduated from Cass Technical High School's Performing Arts program in 1972.

Photo by David Linsell

Terry spent her first year of college at the University of Detroit in its BFA Theatre Program. In 1973 she transferred to the University of Toronto, where in addition to Theatre she also majored in Women's Studies.

Photo by Laima Druskis

In the summer of 1975 she attended Sagaris, an independent institute for the study of feminist political theory. She then enrolled in Thomas Jefferson College, an experimental school based in Western Michigan, and participated in its Women, World, and Wonder program.

Photo by EK Waller

In 1976, she moved to Los Angeles and enrolled in the Feminist Studio Workshop at the Woman's Building. Terry spent the next thirteen years working and creating at the Woman's Building where, in addition to producing performance and literary art, she was also instrumental in the Lesbian Art Project, the Incest Awareness Project, the Great American Lesbian Art Show (GALAS), and a White Women's Anti-Racism Consciousness-Raising Group.

Photo by Bonnie Toman

For a time she served as the Woman's Building's Executive Director.

Photo by Eileen Zegar

In 1982, Terry established a consulting business, Consult'Her, working with nonprofits, small businesses, and individual artists on issues related to vision, planning, resource development, marketing, and human resources. From 2009-2013 she served as adjunct faculty in the M.A. in Arts Management program at Claremont Graduate University.

She has been teaching performance skills and creative writing since 1977. In 1986, she launched the Visions and Revisions Writing Program at Connexxus Women's Center/Centro de Mujeres. In 1988, she established the Perspectives Writing Program at the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center.

Photo by Yvonne M. Estrada

In 1997, she founded Writers At Work, a creative writing center where she continues to teach several weekly workshops in fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry, and to provide creative consultations to writers. She is also Affiliate Faculty in the MFA Writing Program at Antioch University Los Angeles.

Terry Wolverton is the author of eleven books: most recently Ruin Porn, a poetry collection; Wounded World: Lyric Essays About Our Spiritual Disquiet; three novels, Stealing Angel, The Labrys Reunion, and Bailey's Beads; Embers, a novel in poems; Insurgent Muse, a memoir about the Woman's Building; Breath and Other Stories, a collection of short fiction; and three collections of poetry, Black Slip, Mystery Bruise, and Shadow and Praise. She has also edited fourteen compilations of literary work.

In 2000, Terry became a certified instructor of Kundalini Yoga and she has been teaching ever since. She resides in Los Angeles.