Born in the former Soviet Union, Valerie Bandura received degrees from Columbia University and the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College, where she served as the Joan Beebe Teaching Fellow (2004-2006). She was awarded a residency from the Bread Loaf Writer's Conference, and the James Merrill Fellowship from the Vermont Studio Center. Her poems have appeared in Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, Crazyhorse, Alaska Quarterly, Third Coast, and The Best New Poets Anthology, among other publications. FREAK SHOW (Black Lawrence Press, 2013) is her first book. She teaches writing at Arizona State University.
