Simone Muench was raised in small Louisiana towns and the Ozarks in Arkansas. She is the author of The Air Lost in Breathing (Marianne Moore Prize for Poetry; Helicon Nine, 2000), Lampblack & Ash (Kathryn A. Morton Prize for Poetry; Sarabande, 2005), and Orange Crush (Sarabande, 2010). She has been a recipient of a two Illinois Arts Council Fellowships, a VSC Fellowship, the 49th Parallel Award for Poetry, the Charles Goodnow Award, the AWP Intro Journals Project Award, the Poetry Center's Annual Juried Reading Award, and the PSA's Bright Lights/Big Verse Prize. She received her Ph.D from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and is director of the writing program at Lewis University where she teaches creative writing and film studies. Currently, she serves on the advisory board for Switchback Books and UniVerse: A United Nations of Poetry, and is an editor for Sharkforum.
