Monica Lee Weatherly

B. 1972
Headshot of the poet Monica Weatherly
Photo courtesy of the poet

Poet, writer, and professor Monica Lee Weatherly was born in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1972. An Edwin P. McCabe honors scholar, Weatherly graduated from Langston University, where she earned a BA in broadcast journalism. She later attended Clark Atlanta University, where she earned an MA in English and a PhD in Humanities with a concentration in English literature.

Weatherly is a 2023 winner of Georgia Author of the Year for her self-published chapbook of poetry, It Felt Like Mississippi (2022); a 2023 Key West Literary Seminar Workshop Fellowship recipient; and the 2021 winner of the Willie Morris Prize for Southern Poetry for her poem, “If I Had My Grandmama’s Praise.” Her work has been published in literary journals including Tulane Review, Plainsongs, Nzuri Journal, Merge Literary Magazine, Obsidian, South Florida Poetry Journal, and Auburn Avenue.

Weatherly’s writing often focuses on the culture and experiences of women of color in the American South. She is professor of English at Georgia State University, Perimeter College.