Iris Jamahl Dunkle is a poet, biographer, and scholar whose work challenges the male-centric narratives of the American West’s recorded history and amplifies the often-overlooked voices of women. Her new book, Riding Like the Wind: The Life of Sanora Babb (University of California Press, October 15, 2024), is a USA Today bestseller, receiving national acclaim for its poignant exploration of Babb’s life and her fraught relationship with the literary history of the Dust Bowl. PBS producer Ken Burns describes the biography as “heartbreaking and heroic,” bestselling author Kristin Hannah calls it “long overdue,” and U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Hass lauds Dunkle as a “brilliant and vivid storyteller.” The book has been featured in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Millions, The Los Angeles Times, Alta, and many more. An excerpt describing how “Steinbeck mined her research for The Grapes of Wrath. Then her own Dust Bowl novel was squashed” appeared in Salon and sparked dialogue about Babb’s unacknowledged contributions to literary history.
Dunkle earned her MFA in poetry from New York University and her PhD in American Literature from Case Western Reserve University. She is also the author of Charmian Kittredge London: Trailblazer, Author, Adventurer (University of Oklahoma Press, 2020) and four collections of poetry, including West : Fire : Archive, published by The Center for Literary Publishing. Dunkle curates Finding Lost Voices, a weekly blog dedicated to resurrecting the voices of women who have been marginalized or forgotten. She has garnered recognition through awards and fellowships from esteemed institutions such as Biographers International and Vermont Studio Center, and her writing has appeared in publications like Orion, Electric Literature, Liber, Pleiades, Tin House, Calyx, Fence, The Los Angeles Review, and Split Rock Review. Notably, her work was featured on The Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day series and showcased on one hundred buses during the Muni Art 2020 campaign. Dunkle serves as the Poetry and Translation Director at the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference. She’s on the board of the National Book Critics Circle.