Jessica Morey-Collins is a poet and land use planner currently residing in the Pacific Northwest, where she works as a plans examiner. She is the author of the forthcoming chapbook We Were More than Kindling (BLP 2023). Her poems can be found in many publications, including Prairie Schooner, Pleiades, Cotton Xenomorph, Maudlin House, Hobart, Tinderbox, and elsewhere online and in print. Her writing has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best New Poets, and Best of the Net, and her poem “Promise to Recede” won the 2018 Prism Review Poetry Contest. Jessica earned a Master of Fine Arts in poetry at the University of New Orleans, where she won an Academy of American Poets award, the Maxine and Joseph Cassin Prize for poetry thesis, and worked as associate poetry editor for Bayou Magazine. She earned a Master’s of Community and Regional Planning from the University of Oregon, where she managed projects to assess and improve organizational and economic resilience, and won the APA Academic Achievement Award. She has professional experience as an urban planner, educator, GIS marketer, curriculum developer, and graduate writing consultant. She is a mental health advocate, trauma survivor, and straight-passing queer, who spends her spare time doting on her angelic friends, handsome partner, and ridiculous cats.