Brian Barker holds an MFA from George Mason University and a Ph.D. from the University of Houston. His manuscript The Animal Gospels has just been awarded the Editors' Prize in the Tupelo Press first-book competition and will be published by Tupelo. His poems have appeared in such journals as Poetry, Indiana Review, Sou'wester, Pleiades, and River Styx. Barker is the recipient of two Pushcart nominations, an Academy of American Poets Prize, a fellowship from Inprint, Inc., and two "Americans in Krakow" Poetry Seminar fellowships. He has taught at the University of Houston and with Writers in the Schools and currently works as the assistant director of The Center for the Literary Arts at the University of Missouri and as managing editor of the affiliated journal Center. He and his wife, the poet Nicky Beer, live in Columbia, Missouri.