Jacinda Townsend grew up in Southcentral Kentucky. She studied at Harvard University and Duke University Law School before receiving her MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Since receiving her MFA she has been a Fulbright fellow to Côte d’Ivoire, a Carol Houck Smith fiction fellow at the University of Wisconsin, and a Hurston-Wright Award finalist. She lives in Bloomington, Indiana and teaches creative writing at Indiana University.