Poet and naturalist Derek Sheffield was born in Portland, Oregon, and grew up in Gig Harbor, Washington. The first in his family to graduate from college, Sheffield earned his MFA from the University of Washington. His collections of poetry include Not for Luck (Michigan State University Press, 2021), winner of the Wheelbarrow Books Poetry Prize judged by Mark Doty; Through the Second Skin (Orchises Press, 2013), runner-up for the 2012 Emily Dickinson First Book Award and finalist for the Washington State Book Award; and A Revised Account of the West, winner of the Hazel Lipa Environmental Chapbook Award judged by Debra Marquart. With Simmons Buntin and Elizabeth Dodd, Sheffield coedited Dear America: Letters of Hope, Habitat, Defiance, and Democracy (Trinity University Press, 2020).