Healy was born in 1943 in El Paso, Texas and grew up in rural Iowa. She graduated from Immaculate Heart College. She was involved in the Woman's Building, the well known West Coast feminist cultural center, throughout the 1970s and 1980s in various capacities including as a teacher and a member of the Board of Directors.[6] Healy became the first Poet Laureate of Los Angeles in 2012.[1][7] She was instrumental in directing the women's studies program at Cal State Northridge, started the MFA program in creative writing at Antioch University, Los Angeles where she is professor emeritus, and founded Arktoi Books, an imprint of Red Hen Press.[8]
Works
Individual works
Artemis In Echo Park: Poetry, Firebrand Books, 1991, ISBN9780932379900
Building Some Changes, (chapbook), (A Beyond Baroque New Book), Beyond Baroque Foundation, 1976, OCLC: 2462676
Another City: Writing from Los Angeles, ed. David L. Ulin, City Lights Publishers, 2001, ISBN978-0872863910
The Geography of Home: California's Poetry of Place, Heyday Books, 1999, ISBN9781890771195
Grand Passion: Poets of Los Angeles and Beyond, principal ed., Suzanne Lummis, Red Wind Books, 1995, ISBN9780962284793
Intimate Nature: The Bond Between Women and Animals, eds., Barbara Peterson, Brenda Peterson and Deena Metzger, Ballantine Books, 1999, ISBN9780449911228
The World in Us: Lesbian and Gay Poetry of the Next Wave, eds., Michael Lassell, Elena Georgiou, St. Martin's Press, 2000, ISBN9780312209438