Mary Lucille Hays was born in the Midwest and has lived most of her life there, with a couple of interludes in Barcelona and the Jersey Shore. She was named for both of her grandmothers and teaches writing at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In 2017 she received her MFA from Murray State University in Kentucky, where she was a Jesse Stuart Fellow. Mary has published stories in Passagers, Quiddity, Another Chicago Magazine, Broad! Backyard Poultry and other journals. Her poems have appeared in The Mid-America Poetry Review, Blue Violin, Coal City Review, and other publications. In 2007 The Illinois Center for the Book presented her with the Gwendolyn Brooks Award for her poem, “Tippet Hill.†She was a founding editor of New Stone Circle. She raises chickens on her grandmother’s farm in Piatt County, Illinois.