Gwen E. Kirby is a native San Diegan and graduate of Carleton College. She has an MFA from Johns Hopkins University and a PhD from the University of Cincinnati. Her stories appear in One Story, Tin House, Guernica, Mississippi Review, Ninth Letter, SmokeLong Quarterly, and elsewhere. Guest editor Aimee Bender selected her story "Shit Cassandra Saw . . ." for Best Small Fictions 2018 and it also appears in the 2018 Wigleaf Top 50. Her story "Midwestern Girl Is Tired of Appearing in Your Short Stories" won the 2017 DISQUIET Literary Prize for Fiction and she was the 2018-2019 George Bennett Fellow at Phillips Exeter Academy. Currently, she is the associate director of programs and finance for the Sewanee Writers' Conference at the University of the South, where she also teaches creative writing.