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; and Memory of Kin: Stories of Family by Black Writers.