Melissa Mack is a poet and author of The Next Crystal Text (Timeless, Infinite Light / Nightboat), the chapbook Includes All Strangers (Hooke Press), and poems that have appeared in anthologies such as Catechism: Poems for Pussy Riot (English PEN), journals such as The Capilano Review and Elderly, and other ephemera. A long-time resident of Oakland, California, Melissa helped organize community-based spaces of study at the intersection of art, politics, and education, such as the Oakland Summer School and the Bay Area Public School. She now lives in Santa Cruz where she is a PhD student in Literature at the University of California, Santa Cruz.