Kathleen Sheeder Bonanno (1956-2017)[1] was an American poet, teacher, and contributing editor to The American Poetry Review..[2] Bonanno received a Knights Foundation Grant in 2011 (selected from 1700 submissions) to create a literary arts center in Philadelphia, PA, called Musehouse: a Center for the Literary Arts.
It received a positive, full-page review in The New York Times,,[3] while Library Journal praised it as "A stunning first book.
"[5][6] The poems in Slamming Open the Door tell the story of the aftermath of the murder of the author’s daughter, Leidy Bonanno, who was strangled in 2003 by an ex-boyfriend, just after she had graduated from nursing school.
She was honored with a 2008 “Women of Courage/Women of Inspiration Purple Ribbon Award” from Lutheran Settlement House in Philadelphia.
[8] Bonanno was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, and received an undergraduate degree in English and a master’s in education from Temple University.