Sandra Beasley grew up in Virginia. She earned a BA in English from the University of Virginia and an MFA from American University. She worked as an editor for The American Scholar for many years. She is author of four poetry collections: Made to Explode, winner of the Housatonic Book Award; Count the Waves; I Was the Jukebox, winner of the Barnard Women Poets Prize,; and Theories of Falling, winner of the New Issues Poetry Prize. Honors for her work include a 2015 NEA Literature Fellowship, the Center for Book Arts Chapbook Prize, the John Montague International Poetry Fellowship, and six DCCAH Artist Fellowships. She is also the author of the memoir Don’t Kill the Birthday Girl: Tales from an Allergic Life, and the editor of Vinegar and Char: Verse from the Southern Foodways Alliance. She lives in Washington, DC. She serves as the poetry editor for Blair, a nonprofit press based in Durham, North Carolina.