Mary Biddinger's newest poetry collection is Department of Elegy (Black Lawrence Press, 2022). She teaches literature and creative writing at the University of Akron, and edits the Akron Series in Poetry for the University of Akron Press. Poems and flash fiction have recently appeared in Bennington Review, Crazyhorse, DIAGRAM, Gone Lawn, and Thrush Poetry Journal, among others. Biddinger has been the recipient of Individual Excellence Awards from the Ohio Arts Council, a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, and the 2019 Mid-Career Cleveland Arts Prize in literature. Her current project is a flash fiction novella about the adventures of two graduate school roommates in late 1990s Chicago.