Mary Karr  (b. 1954) LINKS Salon—Mary Karr http://www.salon.com/may97/karr970521.html Though Mary Karr told Salon interviewer Dwight Garner that she’d “rather take a whuppin’ than do one more goddamned interview,” Karr doesn’t hold back during this discussion of her works. Guardian Unlimited Books/By genre/Sex, Drugs, and Poetry http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/biography/0,6121,511543,00.html On this site, Guardian writer Nicci Gerrard reviews Karr’s sequel to The Liar’s Club, her second memoir, Cherry. BookPage Interview October 2000: Mary Karr http://www.bookpage.com/0010bp/mary_karr.html Here Karr talks candidly about her writing to interviewer Ellen Kanner from BookPage. WashingtonPost.com: Style Live: Books & Reading http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/books/features/19980412.htm Former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Hass selected Mary Karr for his Poet’s Choice column on The Washington Post’s Web site, which reprinted Karr’s poem “The Grand Miracle.” BIOGRAPHY Mary Karr is best known for her 1995 memoir, The Liar’s Club, about growing up in an East Texas industrial city. Karr chose not to disclose the real name of her hometown but gives it the fictional name of Leechfield. In language praised for its command of colloquialisms and poetic beauty, she describes a childhood marked by violence, neglect, and substance abuse. At seventeen she traveled to California, then on to Macalaster College in Minnesota, dropping out after two years. Later, she studied writing at Goddard College in Vermont. Karr has written for many periodicals, including Poetry, Ploughshares, Granta, and Vogue. She is a two-time winner of the Pushcart Prize. Her first two books were volumes of poetry, Abacus (1997) and The Devil’s Tour (1993). Following The Liar’s Club, she published a third volume of poetry, Viper Rum (1998). Her most recent book, Cherry (2000), a memoir of her teen years, is again set in her hometown.