LAUREN BRAZEAL GARZA received her M.F.A. in poetry from Bennington College and is a Ph.D. candidate in literature at UT Dallas. She is the author of a memoir-in-verse, Gutter (Yes Yes Books, 2018), about her homelessness as a teenager; and has published three chapbooks of poetry, most recently, Santa Muerte, Santa Muerte: I Was Here, Release Me (Tram Editions, 2023), a series of fictional interviews with ghosts. Her poetry, lyric essays, and fiction have appeared in or are forthcoming from The Rumpus, Poetry Northwest, Waxwing, and Verse Daily among many other journals. She currently teaches literature at UT Dallas.