Ellen Bryant Voigt grew up in Chatham, Virginia, and has lived in Vermont since 1969. She has published seven volumes of poetry, including Kyrie, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and Shadow of Heaven, a Finalist for the National Book Award. In 2002 she received the O.B. Hardison, Jr. Prize, for poetry and teaching, from the Folger Shakespeare Library, and the Merrill Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets, where she was subsequently elected a chancellor. Voigt designed—and teaches at—the first low-residency MFA program for writers, at Warren Wilson College in Asheville, North Carolina.