Erinn Batykefer was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania during one of the coldest Januaries on record, and grew up dividing her time between the local library, where she worked as a page, and the Allegheny River, where she learned to row. 

Erinn attended the University of Delaware where she studied painting and ceramics before switching majors to concentrate on writing.  In 2004, she graduated summa cum laude with a BA in English and Art History, and went on to earn her MFA in poetry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she was a Martha Meier Renk Distinguished Poetry Fellow.

She has won numerous awards for her poetry including an Associated Writing Programs Intro Journal Award  and nominations for the 2007 and 2008 Best New Poets Anthologies.  Her essay, "Muscle Memory" won third prize in the 2006 Tin House/SLS Kenya Competition for creative nonfiction, judged by Philip Lopate.

In 2008,  Peggy Shumaker chose Erinn's poetry manuscript, Allegheny, Monongahela as the winner of the Benjamin Saltman First Book Prize at  Red Hen Press. 

Erinn is currently the Stadler Poetry Fellow at Bucknell University where she is Stadler Associate Editor of West Branch. 

You can contact Erinn via e-mail at erinn.batykefer@bucknell.edu or by snail-mail at The Stadler Center for Poetry, 9 Bucknell Hall, Bucknell University, Lewisburg PA 17837