Maria Mazziotti Gillan (1940-present) is a famous poet of the 21st century. She has won numerous awards for her writings, 2011 Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers Award, as well as her involvement in the community, 2014 George Garrett Award for Outstanding Community Service in Literature from the Association of Writers & Writing Programs.

Gillan was born in 1940 to her Italian immigrant working-class parents and grew up in Paterson, NJ. She attended Paterson public schools and graduated from Eastside High School, a place where she began writing poems as a young teenager. Gillan attended Seton Hall University and New York University graduating with an M.A. in Literature and graduated Drew University with a Ph.D.

Gillan discovered her love of teaching when she obtained a teaching position at Caldwell College but left to raise her two children. At the age of 40 Gillan published her first book that would become one of twenty and win her numerous awards such as the 2008 American Book Award for All That Lies Between Us. Gillan was also the co-editor of four anthologies and editor of the Paterson Literary Review.

In 1980 after securing a grant from the State Council on the Arts Gillan gave poetry in Paterson a home and opened the Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College. Although there were doubts about the Center in its location, the establishment flourished presenting notable people, such as Ginsberg, Amiri Baraka, and Stanley Kunitz.

Today Gillan lives in Hawthorne, NJ and teaches poetry at Binghamton University-SUNY, where she is also the director of the creative writing program, and also serves as director of the Poetry Center and Passaic County Cultural and Heritage Council. Gillan has taken up painting and has added some images into her book with the poetry she has written. She has no plans to retire but to keep writing and traveling.