Heather Neff

Last updated
Heather Neff
BornJanuary 1957 (age 66)
Akron, Ohio, U.S.
OccupationWriter
NationalityAmerican
Education Cass Technical High School
University of Michigan (BA)
University of Basel
University of Zurich

Heather Neff (born January, 1957) is a writer and university professor. Born in Akron, Ohio, at the age of 13 her family moved to Detroit, Michigan, where she graduated from Lewis Cass Technical High School in 1975 with a degree in music. She earned a B.A. from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. After graduating in 1978 she studied French at the University of Paris VII, Censier and then lived in Switzerland, where she studied at the University of Basel and the University of Zurich. She received a licentiate in English Literature and Linguistics, Comparative Literature and French Linguistics in 1987, and in 1990, a Doctorate in English Literature from the University of Zurich. Her master's thesis was on James Baldwin. Her doctoral dissertation, Redemption Songs: Protest in the Voice of Afro-Americans, 1760-1880, focused on poetry written by enslaved African Americans. While living in Zurich Neff served as a translator and English instructor for Shell Oil of Switzerland, Swiss Air and Condor Film Studios. She subsequently taught at the University of the Virgin Islands in St. Croix, United States Virgin Islands. Currently Neff is a professor of English at Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, Michigan, where she specializes in the literature of the African Diaspora. Neff is the author of eight novels and has published her short stories and poetry. The founder of Whittaker Road Works, a creative writing collective in Ypsilanti, she has also edited three anthologies of the group's writing. Neff currently serves as the Director of the Eastern Michigan University McNair Scholars Program, [1] one of the U.S. Department of Education's TRiO programs, and serves as editor of the Eastern Michigan University McNair Scholars Research Journal. [2]

Contents

Publications

Fiction

Academic

and a number of articles:

Achievements

Related Research Articles

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References

  1. emich.edu/mcnair
  2. commons.emich.edu/mcnair/