Maureen Aitken is the recipient of the Nilsen Prize for her collection of stories, The Patron Saint of Lost Girls. The collection has earned a Kirkus Star, a Foreword Star, and three of its stories have received Pushcart Prize nominations. Her fiction has been published in journals such as Prairie Schooner, The Journal, Puerto del Sol and the international anthology, The Bering Strait and Other Stories. Her work has received a Minnesota State Arts Board’s Artist Initiative Grant, a Loft Mentor Award, a grant from the SASE/Jerome Foundation, and an award from Ireland’s Fish Short Story Prize. Aitken holds an MFA degree from the University of Minnesota and teaches in the University’s Department of Writing Studies. She is currently working on a memoir about art and a novel.