Kerry Trautman is a lifelong Ohioan whose work has appeared in numerous international anthologies and literary journals. She has served as judge or workshop leader for the Northwest region of Ohio's "Poetry Out Loud" competition annually since 2016. She is a theater-lover who performs with local community theater, and in 2025 her one-act play, "Mass," received a staged-reading as a winner of the Toledo Repertoire Theater's "Toledo Voices" competition. Her previous books are: Things That Come in Boxes (King Craft Press 2012, ) To Have Hoped (Finishing Line Press 2015, ) Artifacts (NightBallet Press 2017, ) To be Nonchalantly Alive (Kelsay Books 2020, ) Marilyn: Self-Portrait, Oil on Canvas (Gutter Snob Books 2022, ) Unknowable Things (Roadside Press 2022, ) Irregulars (Stanchion Books 2023, ) and Things to Say When You Have Nothing to Say (Roadside Press 2026.)