Cara Dees is the author of Exorcism Lessons in the Heartland (Barrow Street Press, 2019), selected by Ada Limón for the Barrow Street Book Prize. An assistant professor of English at Belmont University, she holds a Ph.D. from the University of Cincinnati and an MFA from Vanderbilt University. Her work appears or is forthcoming in The Atlantic, Best New Poets, Harvard Review, The Hudson Review, Ploughshares, and Washington Square Review.