Diane Middlebrook
Diane Helen Middlebrook ( Wood; April 16, 1939 – December 15, 2007) was an American biographer, poet, and teacher. She taught feminist studies for many years at Stanford University. She wrote critically acclaimed biographies of poets Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath (along with Plath's husband Ted Hughes), and jazz musician Billy Tipton. Early life Middlebrook was born Diane Helen Wood in Pocatello, Idaho, the oldest of three daughters. Her parents were teenagers when she was born. In 1945, when Diane was five, the family moved to Spokane, Washington. She graduated from North Central High School in 1957. Education and teaching career Middlebrook expressed her desire to become a published poet and writer, but received no encouragement from her family. She paid her own way through college. She entered Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington, then transferred to the University of Washington in Seattle. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1961. She entered Stanford University as an assistant professor of English in 1966, then obtained a Ph.D. from Yale University in 1969. Her doctoral dissertation was a combined study of American poet Wallace Stevens and American poet/philosopher/essayist Walt Whitman; her doctoral advisor was the American writer and literary critic