Shirley Rickett lived most of her life in Kansas City, Missouri. Her work has appeared in over thirty journals, magazines and anthologies. Rickett received a fellowship from Colgate University in 1999. In 2001 she was the recipient of a GAF award from the University of Missouri—Kansas City Women’s Council. She holds a masters’ degrees in Education and English. One of her poems was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Rickett is a member of VIPF (Valley International Poetry Festival) and an attendee of Poetry@ Round Top where her poems are accepted for the annual anthology.  She has read her work at the Writers Place in Kansas City, Missouri, at various venues in other states, and in Italy. She and her husband Charles retired to South Texas in the Rio Grande Valley in 2006 where she writes and sometimes volunteers for the Pharr Literacy Project in Pharr, Texas.