LaWanda Walters received an M.A. in Literature from California State University at Humboldt and an M.F.A. in Poetry from Indiana University, where she won the Academy of American Poets Prize. Her poems have appeared in The Antioch Review, The Cincinnati Review, The Georgia Review, The Laurel Review, North American Review, Ploughshares, Shenandoah, Southern Poetry Review, and Sou’wester. “Her Art” was chosen by Natasha Trethewey for Best New Poets 2007. Her poem “Marilyn Monroe” appears in Obsession: Sestinas in the Twenty-First Century (Dartmouth College Press, 2014). “Goodness in Mississippi” was chosen by Sherman Alexie for Best American Poetry 2015. She lives in Cincinnati.