Paisley Rekdal is the author of four works of nonfiction, including Appropriate: A Provocation, and six collections of poetry, most recently Nightingale, which won the 2020 Washington State Book Award for Poetry. She is the recipient of fellowships, grants, and prizes from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, Pushcart Press, and the Academy of American Poets, among others, and is the former Utah State Poet Laureate. A Seattle area native, Rekdal received her MA in Medieval Studies from the University of Toronto, and an MFA from the University of Michigan.