Ashley Mace Havird is a poet and novelist who grew up on a tobacco farm in South Carolina. Her debut novel, LIGHTNINGSTRUCK (Mercer University Press, 2016), won the Ferrol Sams Award for Fiction and was a Historical Novel Society Editor's Choice. Her collection of poems, WILD JUICE (LSU Press, 2021), is the 53rd volume of the esteemed Southern Messenger Poets Series. THE GARDEN OF THE FUGITIVES (Texas Review Press, 2014) won the X. J. Kennedy Prize for Poetry. She has also published two poetry chapbooks, SLEEPING WITH ANIMALS and DIRT EATERS. Her poems and short stories have appeared in many journals including Shenandoah, The Southern Review, and The Virginia Quarterly Review, and in anthologies such as The Southern Poetry Anthology, IV: Louisiana, and Hard Lines: Rough South Poetry. Ashley served as Caddo Parish Poet Laureate from 2018-2021. Find out more about Ashley and find links to her work at www.ashleymacehavird.com.