{{short description|American writer}} {{Infobox person | name = Lois "Ann" Russell Darr | birth_date = {{birth date|1920|03|13}} | birth_place = Bagley, Iowa, U.S. | death_date = {{death date and age|2007|12|02|1920|03|13}} | burial_place = Woodlawn Cemetery, Forest Park, Illinois<ref>{{cite news |last1=Sullivan |first1=Patricia |title=Ann Darr, 87; Aviator During WWII, Poet |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/10/AR2007121001832.html |accessdate=18 August 2018 |issue=B07 |newspaper=The Washington Post |date=11 December 2007}}</ref> | occupation = {{flatlist| * Journalist * broadcaster * pilot * homemaker * poet * writer }} | spouse = George Darr (divorced) | children = Dr. Elizabeth Darr, Deborah Darr and Shannon Darr }}
'''Ann Darr''' (March 13, 1920 – December 2, 2007) was an American poet and educator who lived in Washington, D.C.
==Biography== Born Lois Ann Russell in Bagley, Iowa she studied at the University of Iowa where she graduated in 1941 and also completed Civilian Pilot Training.
After college she began her career as a writer and broadcaster on the NBC Radio daily program ''The Women of Tomorrow''.
When war broke out and her husband, enlisted in the Navy, she applied to the Women Airforce Service Pilots program and trained at Sweetwater, TX under pioneering aviator Jacqueline Cochran.
She wrote of her experience as a pilot in her 1978 book ''Cleared For Landing'' which ''The Washington Post'''' praised for its "keen perception of the darker side of things."<ref>{{Cite web |title=Ann Darr, 87; Aviator During WWII, Poet |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/10/AR2007121001832_2.html |access-date=2023-07-17 |website=The Washington Post}}</ref>
Darr taught creative writing at American University and at the Writer's Center in Bethesda, Maryland.
She died of Alzheimer's disease and was buried as a veteran in 2007.
==Selected works== *''St. Ann's Gut'' (Morrow and Company, 1971) *''The Myth of a Woman's Fist'' (Morrow and Company, 1973) *''Cleared for Landing'' (Dryad Press, 1978) *''Riding With the Fireworks'' (Alice James Books, 1981) *''Do You Take This Woman'' (Washington Writers Publishing House, 1986) *''The Twelve Pound Cigarette'' (SCOP, 1990) *''Confessions of a Skewed Romantic'' (The Bunny and Crocodile Press, 1993) *''Flying the Zuni Mountains'' (Forest Woods Media Productions, 1994) *''Gussie, Mad Hannah & Me'' (Argonne Press, 1999) *''Love in the Past Tense'' (Argonne, 2000)
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== *[https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/10/AR2007121001832.html Obituary in ''The Washington Post''] *[http://www.dryadpress.com/AnnDarr.htm Biography on Dryad Press site] *[http://vrzhu.typepad.com/vrzhu/2007/12/ann-darr-87-was.html VRZHU Blog remembrance] by Grace Cavalieri *[http://www.pritzkermilitary.org/explore/museum/past-exhibits/shes-wow/wasps/lois-darr/ Profile at Pritzker Military Museum and Library] *[https://www.loc.gov/item/94838604/ Ann Darr reading her poems with comment in the Recording Laboratory, Feb. 7, 1973]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Darr, Ann}} Category:American aviation writers Category:American radio personalities Category:American University faculty Category:Aviators from Iowa Category:Poets from Iowa Category:1920 births Category:2007 deaths Category:University of Iowa alumni Category:20th-century American poets Category:American women aviators Category:American women non-fiction writers Category:20th-century American non-fiction writers Category:American women academics Category:21st-century American women Category:20th-century American women poets