Melissa Powers is an award-winning poet, author and lecturer. She has been teaching and tutoring college English for more than 25 years. She is the recipient of the 2009 William Stafford/ Washington State Poets Association Award, the 2003 Florida State Poets Association Quarterly Poetry Award, third place in the 2003 Johnson Memorial League of Minnesota Poets Award, and the 1998 Springield Writers Guild Literary Awards Grand Prize Winner and First Honorable Mention for Poetry.