Michele Battiste’s third book of poems, Waiting for the Wreck to Burn (2019), won the Louise Bogan Award for Excellence in Poetry from Trio House Press. Her next book, The Elsewhere Oracle, doubles as an oracle deck and will be released in 2025 by Black Lawrence Press. She is also the author of several chapbooks, and her poems, essays, and reviews have appeared in a wide array of journals and anthologies, including American Poetry Review, The Gettysburg Review, Rain Taxi, the Rumpus, and Beloit Poetry Journal. Michele earned an MA in English from the University at Albany and an MFA in Creative Writing from Wichita State University. She loves silent discos, large bodies of water, the brown bear cam at Katmai National Park, space buns, and parlor games. She lives in Colorado where she raises money to tackle climate change and protect nature.