Ally AckerNew York City born and bred, Ally Acker has been the recipient of numerous poetry awards, including the Garden Street Press publication prize for her first collection of poems, Surviving Desire, in 1994; the Chester H. Jones Foundation Award; nd the Carl Sandburg Centennial Award. She holds two MFAs from Columbia University, one in creative writing and one in film. Her second collection of poetry, Waiting for the Beloved, was published by Red Hen Press in 1999. Acker is also the author of Reel Women: Pioneers of the Cinema, 1896 to the Present (Continuum 1991), with a foreword by Judith Crist. The book was hailed by critics as groundbreaking in the fields of film and women's history. It was the first book on the market to reveal the transformational rold that women have played in every aspect of the film business since 1896. Derived from Reel Women, Ms. Acker produced and directed ten documentaries, Filmmakers on Film, about the second wave of pioneering women in the movie business. Reel Women was also adapted into an interactive CD, Reel Women: The Untold Story, narrated by Jodie Foster. Ally Acker's poetry has appeared in the American Voice, the Antioch Review, Folio, Ms. Magazine, New Letters, Plexus, Ploughshares, Poetry Kanto (Japan), Sojourner, the Southwest Review, the South Dakota Review, the Sun and Woman of Power among other publications. She lives in New York with her dog, the intrepid Maggie Poppie. See more at http: //www.reelwomen.com. Read More Read Less