Lauren Mallett was born in Pennsylvania and raised in Oregon and Illinois. She has lived and studied in Guanajuato and Xalapa, Mexico. Lauren taught dual-language immersion fifth grade in Richmond, California. She earned her MFA and was the Assistant Director of Creative Writing at Purdue University. Her recent writing appears in Poetry Northwest, Puerto del Sol, The Seventh Wave, The Night Heron Barks, Grimoire Magazine, Cola Literary Review, and other journals. Lauren lives with her partner, Strand Sheldahl-Thomason, on Clatsop land of Oregon's north coast. She serves on the Oregon Poetry Association's Board of Directors. Lauren is the Student Contest Chair of Cascadia. She is on the Reynolds Young Writers Workshop faculty and teaches at Warrenton High School.