Bernice E. Cullinan was born on October 12, 1926 in Hamilton, Ohio. She began her career as an elementary school teacher as she pursued her undergraduate and graduate studies at Ohio State University. She was an instructor and assistant professor at Ohio State University from 1959 to 1967 before moving to an associate professor position at New York University in 1967. She taught there for 30 years. She received many honors for her teaching and advocacy work including induction into the IRA's Reading Hall of Fame in 1989.
In 1990, she was named editor-in-chief of Wordsong, the newly created poetry imprint at Boyds Mills Press, a position she held until 2008. During her lifetime, she wrote or edited more than 40 books including Children's Literature in the Reading Program (IRA) and Literature and the Child. She died on February 5, 2015 at the age of 88.
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