// Melissa Helton Jørgenrud was born in the Great Lakes region of the US and lives in the Appalachian Mountains of Kentucky, where she writes, teaches, and raises a family. Her degrees span from environmental studies, to creative writing, to education. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Anthology of Appalachian Writers, Shenandoah, Still: The Journal, Appalachian Review, and more. Her chapbooks include Inertia: A Study (Finishing Line Press, 2016) and Forward Through the Interval (Workhorse, 2021). She is a dual citizen in the UK and her great-grandparents emigrated from Norway to the US in 1904.