Melissa Mylchreest writes poetry and nonfiction in Missoula, Montana. She is the author of the chapbook Reckon, and the full-length poetry collection, Waking the Bones, which won the 2014 Dorothy Brunsman Prize from Bear Star Press. Her work has appeared in many venues, including High Country News, Big Sky Journal, Western Art & Architecture, Flyway, Crab Orchard Review, American Cowboy, Talking River Review, Parallax, Camas, High Desert Journal, Ranch & Reata, Cabin Life, The Missoula Independent, and Montana Public Radio. She is the winner of the 2011 and 2012 Obsidian Prizes for Poetry, the 2011 Merriam-Frontier Award, the 2008 Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Prize, and is a two-time Pushcart nominee. Mylchreest holds both a MS and MFA from the University of Montana. When she's not writing, she makes functional art and spends as much time as possible outside with her two-legged and four-legged friends.