Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database. Originally from Missouri, I had the enormous good fortune to study with the legendary Larry Levis as an undergraduate at the University of Missouri and also as a doctoral student at the University of Utah (PhD, 1993). Since 1994, I’ve lived in Wilmington, North Carolina, and taught at The University of North Carolina at Wilmington, where I currently serve as Chair of the Creative Writing Department. My books are the poetry collections The Island from Copper Canyon, Palma Cathedral (winner of the Colorado Prize, judged by Mark Strand), Re-entry (winner of the Vassar Miller Prize, judged by Paul Mariani), and Vermeer in Hell (winner of the Lexi Rudnitsky Editors Prize). Most recently, I also have a memoir, Travels in Vermeer, from Persea Books. I have published poetry and prose in The Paris Review, The New Republic, The Kenyon Review, The Best American Poetry, among many other magazines and anthologies. My teaching awards at UNCW include the Chancellor’s Distinguished Teaching Award and the UNCW Graduate Mentor Award. I have a daughter named Sophia.