Born in Delaware, Linda Bierds (1945- ) lived in Anchorage until she was seven. She attended both undergraduate and graduate school at the University of Washington, where she is a professor and director of the creative writing program. Her current residence is on Bainbridge Island, located in the Central Puget Sound Basin. She is the author of seven volumes of poetry and appears regularly in The New Yorker. She has won several major awards and grants including the Guggenheim and the “genius” grant from the MacArthur Foundation.