Cheryl Dumesnil

Cheryl Dumesnil (born 1969) is an American author, poet and editor. She is a frequent contributor to The Huffington Post. Her poems and essays have appeared in Indiana Review, Barrow Street, Calyx, and Literary Mama. She frequently writes about suburbia, parenthood, and lesbian issues.

Dumesnil was awarded the 2008 Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize for her first full-length book, In Praise of Falling.

Dumesnil received her MFA in creative writing from Syracuse University and taught at Santa Clara University from 1994 to 2001. She lives in Walnut Creek, California with her wife and two sons.

Sample Works

• "Bernal Heights", Verse Daily
• "Don't Ask Me". Cortland Review. Spring 2009.
• "In Praise of Falling", "Narrative"

Books

• Love Song for Baby X: How I Stayed (Almost) Sane on the Rocky Road to Parenthood. Ig Publishing. 2013. (memoir)
• In Praise of Falling. University of Pittsburgh Press. 2009. ISBN 978-0-8229-6041-6. (poetry)
• Toward desire. Syracuse University. 1996. (poetry)

Anthologies

• Gail Rudd Entrekin, ed. (2007). Yuba Flows. Hip Pocket Press. ISBN 978-0-917658-35-8.

Editor

• Cheryl Dumesnil, ed. (2005). Hitched!: wedding stories from San Francisco City Hall. Thunder's Mouth Press. ISBN 978-1-56025-764-6.
• Kim Addonizio; Cheryl Dumesnil, eds. (2002). Dorothy Parker's Elbow: Tattoos on Writers, Writers on Tattoos. Diane Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7567-9159-9.