Kelly Cherry is the author of seven books of poetry (most recently, Hazard and Prospect: New and Selected Poems), seven of fiction (most recently, We Can Still Be Friends), and three of nonfiction (essay, memoir, criticism; most recently, History, Passion, Freedom, Death, and Hope: Prose about Poetry). She has also published eight chapbooks and two translations of classical drama. Her book Girl in a Library is forthcoming in the fall and The Retreats of Thought: Poems in 2009. She is Eudora Welty Professor of English and Evjue-Bascom Professor in the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and lives with her husband on a small farm in southside Virginia.