Michael Schmeltzer was born and raised in Japan before moving to the United States. He is the author of Elegy/Elk River, winner of the Floating Bridge Press Chapbook Award, and Blood Song, his full-length debut from Two Sylvias Press. He earned an MFA from the Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University. His honors include numerous Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize nominations, the Gulf Stream Award for Poetry, and the Blue Earth Review’s Flash Fiction Prize. His writing has been published or is forthcoming in various journals such as Black Warrior Review, Rattle, PANK, and Mid-American Review, among others.