Linda Addison (poet)

Linda D. Addison
Linda Addison in 2014
Born	(1952-09-08) September 8, 1952 (age 64) Philadelphia, PA, US

Linda D. Addison (born September 8, 1952) is an American poet and writer of horror, fantasy, and science fiction. Addison is the first African-American winner of the Bram Stoker Award, which she won four times. The first two awards were for her poetry collections Consumed, Reduced to Beautiful Grey Ashes (2001) and Being Full of Light, Insubstantial (2007). Her poetry and fiction collection How To Recognize A Demon Has Become Your Friend won the 2011 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Poetry Collection. She received a fourth HWA Bram Stoker for the collection The Four Elements, written with Marge Simon, Rain Graves, and Charlee Jacob. Addison is a founding member of the CITH (Circles in the Hair) writing group.

Addison was born in Philadelphia, PA, on September 8, 1952. She is the eldest of nine children born to Janet Marie Webster (née Warrick) and J. Decarsta Webster. From an early age, Addison was inspired by the power of storytelling. Janet, a homemaker who never graduated from high school, nightly entertained her children with self-authored stories and tales, inserting her children as characters in her fantastical fables. The stories always ended on a note of mystery and intrigue, inspiring young Linda to further explore the mysterious and magical, light and dark, eventually she began to journal her feelings, stories and experiences laying the groundwork for her eventual career as a writer.

Addison attended Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA, from 1970 to 1975, graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics.

She moved to New York City in 1975 with fiancé Ken Addison, and started working in the Foreign Royalty Accounting Department at RCA Records. The couple married Ken Addison in 1975 and their son Brian was born in 1982.

In 1996, Addison's short story "Little Red in the Hood" was published in Tomorrow Speculative Fiction and was listed as an Honorable Mention in the annual Year's Best Fantasy and Horror anthology (1997).