Sklarew moved to DC in 1961 and taught at American University from 1970 until her retirement in 2007, where, among other achievements, she founded their MFA program and served as chair of the literature department. From 1987 to 1991, she interrupted her teaching career to serve as president of Yaddo, an artist colony in Saratoga, New York. Early in her career, Sklarew worked as a biologist at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and the Department of Neurophysiology at Yale University School of Medicine.
Sklarew is the author of fourteen books of poems, as well as fiction and nonfiction; her books include: Harmless (2010); Lithuania (1995), Altamira (1987), and From the Backyard of the Diaspora (1981, winner of the National Jewish Book Council Award in Poetry). Her honors include the Scholar/Teacher Award from American University, a PEN Syndicated Fiction Award, the Anna David Rosenberg Award from the Judah Magnes Museum, and the Di Castagnola Award from the Poetry Society of America. She also served on the advisory boards of Furious Flower Poetry Center at James Madison University, the Center for Israeli Studies at American University, and founded the “A Splendid Wake” archive at George Washington University’s Gelman Library to document the history of DC poets.