Lyall F. Harris, originally from Virginia, is an award-winning artist and published creative and critical writer. She is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate in Art History of Northwestern University. Lyall is currently the sole inaugural candidate for the nation’s first MFA in Book Art and Creative Writing at Mills College (Dec 2011). She lives and works in San Francisco.
Over the last decade, Lyall's artwork has been exhibited in more than one hundred solo and juried group shows and recognized with over twenty awards, including The George Hitchcock Prize from the National Academy Museum, New York. Lyall has been the recipient of residencies at Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and NALL Foundation in Vence, France. In 2010, she was a Grabhorn Fellow.
Lyall's poetry has appeared in The Prose Poem Project, Haiku Journal, and the San Francisco Bay Guardian. Her writing was a finalist for the Bunchgrass Poetry Prize and in writing contests at The Briar Cliff Review (poetry) and Glimmer Train Press (fiction). She was awarded the Honorable Mention for the Mary Merritt Henry Prize in Poetry and also received an Honorable Mention from New Millennium Writings (poetry). Her creative nonfiction was featured in The Montréal Review in June 2011.
Prior to moving to San Francisco, Lyall spent six years in Florence, Italy. She was deeply influenced by Giotto and early Renaissance painters, by the simple beauty of the Tuscan landscape, and by the quality of Italian life. With her Florentine husband and two children, she continues to spend time each year painting and writing in Tuscany.