Shara Lessley

Shara Lessley is the author of The Explosive Expert’s Wife, Two-Headed Nightingale, and co-editor of The Poem’s Country: Place & Poetic Practice, an anthology of essays. A former Stegner Fellow at Stanford, her awards include an NEA fellowship, the Mary Wood Fellowship from Washington College, the Diane Middlebrook Poetry Fellowship from the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing, an Olive B. O’Connor Fellowship from Colgate University, and a “Discovery”/The Nation prize. Shara's poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Kenyon Review, Revel, 32 Poems, and Poetry, among others, and have been included in the Pushcart and Best American Poetry anthologies. Consulting Editor for Acre Books, Shara is the Creative Nonfiction Editor for West Branch.