Laura Walker grew up in rural North Carolina and now lives in Berkeley, California. She is the author of Follow-Haswed (Apogee Press, 2012), rimertown/ an atlas (UC Press, 2008), swarm lure (Battery Press, 2004), and the chapbook bird book (Albion Books, 2010). She is the recipient of a Fund for Poetry grant and the Ann Fields Poetry Award, and she teaches poetry at University of San Francisco's MFA in Writing Program and UC Berkeley Extension.