Claudia Rankine was born in Jamaica in 1963. She is the author of four collections of poetry, including Don’t Let Me Be Lonely, The End of the Alphabet, and Nothing in Nature is Private (1995), which received the Cleveland State Poetry Prize. Rankine is co-editor of American Women Poets in the Twenty-First Century (Wesleyan University Press). Her poetry is also included in several anthologies, including Great American Prose Poems: From Poe to the Present, Best American Poetry 2001, Giant Step: African American Writing at the Crossroads of the Century, and The Garden Thrives: Twentieth Century African-American Poetry. She teaches in the writing program at the University of Houston.

Each quarter, the Living Writers Reading Series brings visiting authors and poets to UC Santa Cruz to give students an in-depth look into the world of the working writer.  Sponsored by Oakes College and the Porter Hitchcock Poetry Fund.