Diane Ackerman

Diane Ackerman is a literary fiction, science author and poet from Ithaca New York. She was born to local shoe salesman Sam Fink and seasoned world traveler Marsha Tischler Fink in Waukegan, Illinois. Nonetheless, she spent much of her youth in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and remembers that she always loved reading poetry from a very early age. She remembers beaming with so much excitement when she read the bat: the living plums, her first metaphor. During this time, Ackerman also developed a fascination with the universe, nature, astronomy, and animals that would later influence her career choice and writing career. She went to Boston College and then went on to graduate with a bachelor in English from Pennsylvania State University in 1970. Being the nerd that she was, she continued to Cornell for her masters and over seven years, she got her Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy in Literature and a Creative Writing Master of Fine Arts. Ackerman got married to writer Paul West and they lived together in Ithaca until he died in 2015. Over the years, she has been involved in all manner of things that she is called an essayist, poet, travel writer, and author.