Valerie Vogrin's collection "Things We'll Need for the Coming Difficulties" was awarded the Spokane Prize for Short Fiction (Willow SpringsPress, 2020). She is the author of the novel "Shebang," and her short stories have appeared in journals such as Ploughshares, AGNI, Hobart, Memorious, Zone 3, and The Los Angeles Review as well as in "2011 Pushcart Prize XXXV: Best of the Small Presses," "The Best Small Fictions 2015," and "New Stories from the Midwest 2020." Her work has been supported by residencies at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and the Anderson Center for Interdisciplinary Studies. Valerie received her MFA from the University of Alabama. She's a professor of creative writing at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. She lives with her husband, dog, and cat on a tiny unnamed lake in Moro, Illinois.