Lauren Mallett was born in Pennsylvania and raised in Oregon and Illinois. She has lived and studied in Guanajuato and Xalapa, Mexico. Lauren earned her BA from Denison University and her MFA from Purdue University. She taught dual-language immersion fifth grade in Richmond, California. Her writing appears in Poetry Northwest, The Seventh Wave, The Night Heron Barks, Grimoire Magazine, 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.