Mary Helen Washington is a critic, essayist, anthologist, and English professor at the University of Maryland. Previously she taught at the University of Massachusetts and was a Bunting Fellow at Harvard. She is the editor of numerous anthologies of black writing, including Black-Eyed Susans- Classic Stories by Black Women Writers;Midnight Birds- Stories of Contemporary Black Women Writers;Invented Lives- Narratives of Black Women; andMemory of Kin- Stories of Family by Black Writers.