Carol Sklenicka (December 11, 1948 - ) is an American biographer and literary scholar known for her authoritative, full-scale biographies of acclaimed short story masters Raymond Carver and Alice Adams, two important figures in late twentieth-century American literature. Sklenicka's biography of Carver, Raymond Carver: A Writer's Life (2009), was named one of the Ten Best Books of 2009 by The New York Times Book Review and a Notable Book by the San Francisco Chronicle, The Washington Post, and the Seattle Times. Her biography of Adams, Alice Adams: Portrait of a Writer (2019), was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice and named a Christian Science Monitor Book of the Month.

Sklenicka grew up in Santa Maria in Santa Barbara County on the central coast of California. After graduating in 1971 from California Polytechnic State University, Sklenicka taught briefly at the secondary school level then entered graduate school at Washington University in St. Louis. Studying with critic and translator Naomi Lebowitz, novelist Stanley Elkin, and poet Howard Nemerov, she received a Ph.D. in English and American literature there in 1986. She taught literature and creative writing at Marquette University and at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design.

Howard Nemerov (March 1, 1920 – July 5, 1991), a native of New York City, was a widely published poet who has been recognized with numerous prizes, awards, grants, and fellowships. He graduated from Harvard in 1941 and immediately enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force. Nemerov flew for the Canadian forces in Europe until 1944, when he joined the U.S. Army Air Force and flew combat missions until 1945.

In 1946, Nemerov became an associate editor of Furioso and began teaching at Hamilton College. He served on Furioso until 1951 and taught at several other schools--Bennington College, the University of Minnesota, Brandeis University and Hollins College--until 1963, when he received a one year appointment as Poetry Consultant to the Library of Congress. In 1969, Nemerov joined the English faculty at Washington University where he remained a highly visible and popular teacher, holding the Edward Mallinckrodt Distinguished Professor of English Chair.

Although he was best known as a poet, Nemerov has written novels, short stories, essays, and criticism. His first book, The Image and the Law, was published in 1947 and he has produced over 20 books since then. Nemerov has received nearly every award or prize available to poets including the Prize for Poetry in 1977 for Collected Poems, and the Bollingen Prize for Poetry in 1981. He was inducted into the Academy of American Poets in 1971 and was elected a member of the American Institute of Arts and Letters in 1977.