Brenda Hillman has published seven books and three chapbooks of poetry, including the first two books in a tetrology exploring the four elements of earth, air, water, and fire: Pieces of Air in the Epic, (Wesleyan, 2005), winner of the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America, and Cascadia.  The third in this series, Practical Water, has just been released by Wesleyan Press. Loose Sugar (Wesleyan, 1997) was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and Bright Existence (Wesleyan, 1993) was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals, including The Colorado Review, FENCE, the American Poetry Review, and Slate.   She is the Olivia Filippi Professor of Poetry at St. Mary’s College in Moraga, California.