About the Author

Colleen S. Harris earned her M.F.A. in Writing from Spalding University. A three-time Pushcart Prize nominee for her poetry and short fiction, her poetry collections include  The Light Becomes Us (Main Street Rag, 2025), These Terrible Sacraments (Bellowing Ark, 2010; Doubleback, 2019), The Kentucky Vein (Punkin House, 2011), God in My Throat: The Lilith Poems (Bellowing Ark, 2009), and chapbooks Toothache in the Bone (boats against the current, 2025), The Girl and the Gifts (Bottlecap, 2025), That Reckless Sound (Porkbelly, 2014), and Some Assembly Required (Porkbelly, 2014). She also co-edited Women Versed in Myth: Essays on Modern Women Poets (McFarland, 2016) and Women on Poetry: Writing, Revising, Publishing, and Teaching (McFarland, 2012). Harris grew up on Long Island, and as an academic librarian has made her home in places including Kentucky, Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, California, and now Laredo, Texas, where she works as a university library dean.

Colleen’s hobbies include jigsaw puzzling, reading romance novels and poetry, and collecting tattoos and advanced degrees. In addition to her Master of Fine Arts in Writing (Poetry) from Spalding University, she holds bachelor’s degrees in Economics and International Relations from Centre College, an ALA-accredited Master of Science in Library Science from the University of Kentucky, a NASPAA-accredited Master of Public Administration (MPA) from California State University San Bernardino, an Ed.D. in Learning & Leadership from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Mythological Studies from the Pacifica Graduate Institute. She is currently working on an M.A. in English, and another poetry collection in her spare time. She has a particular affection for basset hounds and Rottweilers, and her favorite poets include Agha Shahid Ali, Louise Gluck, Kim Addonizio, Ada Limon, Frank X. Walker, and Czeslaw Milosz.