Van Clief-Stefanon earned her BA in English from Washington and Lee University in 1996, and her MFA in Poetry from Penn State University in 1999. She published her first full-length collection, Black Swan (University of Pittsburgh Press), in 2001, for which she won the Cave Canem Prize and was a finalist for the 2003 Patterson Poetry Prize.[1]
In July 2004, she became an assistant professor at Cornell University in English Literature.
In June 2008, Van Clief-Stefanon co-authored the chapbook Poems in Conversation and a Conversation with Elizabeth Alexander.[2] In April 2009, Van Clief-Stefanon published her second poetry collection, ]Open Interval[, which was a finalist for the National Book Award.
Van Clief-Stefanon's work has appeared in African American Review, Callaloo, Crab Orchard Review, Gulf Coast, and Shenandoah, among other places.
She is currently working on a third book, The Coal Tar Colors.[3]
